


Whiten Out

by tb_ll57



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:16:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 32
Words: 117,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang.  The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious.  Treize Khushrenada never died.  There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself?  This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Duo

**Author's Note:**

> AU from end of series. Begins AC 198.

He couldn't breathe. He was mashed face-first into the pillow, and he couldn't breathe. He threw off the covers and rolled, dumping himself clear off the mattress. He slipped to the carpet, gasping deep lungfuls of air. His body was covered in sweat, but it shivered now, naked and exposed. He could still see the suit falling, and Libra breaking up in Space.

'Finally, you're awake.'

'Yeah.' He wiped his face on his arm. Reached for the clock, there above his head on the bedside table. 'Time is it.'

'Almost six.' Boots on the plush Persian rugs, passing wide around to the mirror. The lamp came on, a sudden burning glare on his flinching eyes. There was steam from the bath, leaking out, smelling like soap. He really had slept overlong.

'Yeah,' he managed. He pushed himself to his feet. The tremors were going. Familiar sights. The bed was wrecked, like he'd been thrashing. He had to hunt through the folds of the duvet for his underpants. 'I'll get out of your hair. Sorry.'

'It's fine. You can have one of them walk you back.'

His shoes were all the way under the bed. He slipped into his pants and shirt, stuffed his socks into his pocket. He strapped on his watch, and swept the torn condom wrappers off the table into the bin with the used tissues. 'Okay,' he said. 'It's close enough. I'll go.'

'Mm.' Zechs was there by the mirror, carefully tying his ascot. His damp hair was heavy down his ivory shirt. When Duo ventured near, it curled loosely around his finger. 'You can shower,' Zechs said then. 'If you like.'

'I'll do it back at the barracks.' His own hair was a wreck. He looped his fringe back behind his ears, but it wouldn't stay. 'You going to the speech?'

'You know how he is. He likes us all arranged for his press pictures, a happy family all saluting the future together.' Zechs tied the knot and reached for his cufflinks. 'It will end eventually. If there's a human left who hasn't heard he's lifting the ban on mobile technology, it's not for lack of trying. He'll be preaching to rabbits and attentive earthworms next.'

'He could try colonists first.'

Zechs shot him a keen look in the mirror. Duo ducked it. 'Okay,' he mumbled. 'I'll see you later.'

'I heard Yuy was back from Kenya.'

'Uh, yeah.' He paused at the door. 'The other day.'

'Have him come to my suite tonight.'

He wasn't entirely awake. 'Why?' he asked, before the whole sentence caught up on him. The fuzzy feeling in his head went numb, and then he was dead clear. Dead clear.

Zechs twitched the cuffs of his sleeves tight, and reached for his coat on the hook. 'I won't need you again,' he said.

'Oh,' he managed, past the sudden frog in his throat.

'Dismissed, Agent.'

He meant to move. In his brain he was moving. Til he blinked and registered it was the bed he was staring at, the bed with its jumbled sheets, their pillows still close together, sharing the middle. He blinked again.

He made himself smile. Teeth and everything. Zechs wasn't watching for it, so he just levelled it at his back. 'At least you won't have to stand next to him,' he said casually, and opened the door. 'He'll probably put you on the left. The photographers are always cordoned onto the right. You'll be safe from the big bad press.'

'What's that--' He let it pause him, glancing back with just a raised eyebrow as if only mildly curious, while Zechs struggled with it, asking his opinion after booting him only a moment earlier. But Zechs had never been able to overlook good bait, and ego was always a sure bet. 'What's that mean.'

Duo shrugged at him. 'You know Treize. He's been edging you out for months. I figured you were good with it. You didn't even try to get your seat changed at the Summit last week.'

Doubt. Just a shadow. Stew on that, Duo said with his smile, and pitched his voice just loud enough for the two agents on guard in the hall to hear. 'It happens to everyone, General. I hear, anyway.'

The innuendo landed. Duo saw the guards exchange a loaded glance. Zechs ignored it with a grinding jaw, but Duo left with his head high, his stomach sour, and a horribly empty hole where the hurt should have been.


	2. Treize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'We're on in ten,' Bancroft murmured. He squeezed a wedge of lemon over the tea, and passed the porcelain mug handle-first. 'They'll introduce you via local stations, and then cut over to our broadcast. The camera light will go green and you'll be live.'

'I'm familiar with the process,' Treize replied. He smiled briefly at the make-up girl as she tugged the tissue from his collar and swept his shoulders with a lint brush. 'I want to take questions after.'

'You're scheduled to be in Venezuela to address the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.'

'I love a good socialist.' He sipped his steaming tea, and leant up to set it on the counter at his station. 'Never too committed to humanitarianism to fight a war. Questions on the plane, then. I don't want an informational vacuum after this. Tell them they'll have access to satellite phone on the plane. I want them absorbed in what I have to say, not speculating on their own.'

'Yes, sir. I'll pass the word quietly.' Bancroft checked his watch. 'On in seven. If you stand there by the curtain, you'll have a moment of privacy.'

He clapped Bancroft on the shoulder as he stood, and had himself a final swallow of tea before taking his spot in the eaves of the stage. The noise of the crowd beyond was a buzz of conversation and, here and there, shouted confrontations between security and those who had made a little too free with the open bar. Not long after he took position they began to quiet, alerted by discrete chimes that the programme was about to begin. He rocked on his toes, felt in his pocket for the small river stone he'd had Bancroft bring him. Smooth sides from the constant flow of water, an oblong shape with a small bend in the middle. Formed by nature. Connected to this place. He would return in there shortly, but for now he wanted it with him, inspiration and reassurance in tandem.

'Please join me in welcoming His Excellency, Field Marshal Treize Khushrenada, Secretary General of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation.'

He left his hiding spot at a stately walk, greeted by strong applause and scattered cheering. The crowd itself was well restricted in size by rigourous security screening, but the thousand or so who had come to listen today were a mixture of local celebrities and veterans, not the Romafeller big-wigs and press he usually dealt with. He smiled and pressed the hands of the governor who had just introduced him, shook with the small coterie of grinning officials who queued for him beside the podium. Then he mounted the stepstool, set his hands to either side of the microphone, and waited out the crowd for silence. The cameraman on scaffolding to his left counted down three, two, one, and then the light went green, just as Bancroft had said.

'Good morning,' Treize said evenly. His voice boomed over the crowd, quieting the last whispers. 'We gather today with one specific purpose: that I might announce the close of combat operations in all theatres of war. With the surrender of dissident movements in North America and Southeast Asia, I have withdrawn all troops involved in military and counter-insurgency activity. Seven hundred thousand five hundred and forty-six troops remain deployed across the globe and in Space in peace-keeping capacity, and will be phased out by consensus of the ESUN Parliament in the next eighteen months.'

The applause this time was raucous, the cheers thunderous. He let it run nearly three minutes. They were united now, but by the time he boarded his plane doubts would be rampant across the net and the airwaves. Would he meet the deadline he'd just set? Were peace and safety assured by troops who were tired and ill-suited to rebuilding? Was he telling the truth at all-- could he be trusted? He'd been careful to hoard such public appearances for only the most necessary announcements, that his pretty speeches would have the most impact, would carry the weight of deliberated wisdom, not partisan party-lines. The Sphere knew his face-- and a great swath of the Sphere knew it with hatred-- but that would change with time. He had patience when he needed it. One day not very far in the future, they would associate him not with the war he'd waged and won, but with the peace he would establish and make good for them.

So he stood at ease, and let them celebrate, however long it would last.

When they began to quiet, he spoke again. 'We are a species of uncertainty. We have lived with war for nearly a century. In this last year a half-dozen factions have risen to greatness, and fallen to the next. The United Earth Sphere Alliance, the military hegemony who ruled our grandparents and our parents, is no more. The Organisation of the Zodiac, the elite mobile unit of the Alliance, is no more. Romafeller Foundation, an outmoded aristocratic oligarchy who dominated through money and influence, is no more. White Fang and its associated militant resistance groups are no more. What remains is the coalition of peace-seeking and self-determining nations who join hands to offer, for the first time in a century, international law recognised by the agreement of member states, international economic development which deprives none and prefers none, and the protection of human rights which prevents atrocity and tragedy, promotes free and fair elections, provides justice, enacts constitutional authority, and places the good of the people above the petty needs of the few. Here at the last battleground of the Eve Wars, on this riverbed scored and broken by the Battleship Libra's devastating beam cannon, we will begin our new era.

'Here at this spot, we confront the enormity of the tasks before us. Are peace and prosperity beyond our reach? Are courage and resolve enough to accomplish our goals? I say no to each. No-- peace is not beyond our reach, nor a world in which each nation supports the next, each neighbour helps those in need. But courage and resolve are not enough. Our ancestors were brave and strong, but fell to sectarian in-fighting, to greed, to hate. Our soldiers were brave, but their leaders were small men. Our heroes gave their lives for us. Here at this riverbed we buried them by the thousands. Men and women of Oz, Alliance, White Fang, the Colonial Resistance. What can we do that they didn't? What more can we give, what more can we promise?

'I begin with the rule of law. Military forces are forces of war, and we accomplish nothing if we do not acknowledge this fundamental fact. I am here today to propose an alternative. I am here today to introduce you to the first act of the ESUN Security Council: the creation of a force whose primary mission will be to prevent acts of war. The Preventers will unite all members of the ESUN, be subject to all substantive decisions of the Security Council, and be responsible for all peace-keeping operations enacted by the ESUN Parliament. Preventers will use traditional methods of dispute resolution such as negotiation and mediation, but more importantly they will be prepared, capable, and ready to deploy more forceful action when authorised. Do not fear the creation of this body. Preventers will not be a standing army, the militant arm of a regime poised for hostile takeover. Preventers will be a small, strategic force, comprised of observers, lightly armed troops, administrators, economists, human rights monitors, and civil governance experts who will supervise disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration.

'The Preventer operative will be known to all. You will see Preventers on your television screens, you will see them in your towns and cities, and you will see them in your sons and daughters. The faces of Preventers will be impartial and transparent, responsive to the people, supported by your consent. The Preventer will be the face of the Earth Sphere United Nation, and they will be the sign of our success as a species. When we no longer need Preventers, we will have achieved a world in which all mankind live peacefully, have plenty, and pledge respect for life and liberty above all else.

'Effective next week, I resign my position as Secretary General of the Earth Sphere United Nation to serve instead as Secretary of the Security Council and Director of Peacekeeping Operations. As we greet the New Year, as we celebrate the definitive end of a century of conflict, I count on the generosity of spirit and the determination which marks the best of our kind. I know you will not disappoint me. We will rebuild together, as one people.'

He slipped his hand into his pocket, to the little stone that warmed against his fingers. 'In a moment,' he said, 'I will return you to Governor Maruska for the dedication of the Eve Wars Memorial. No monument can ever encompass the sacrifice that made it necessary. No monument can ever do true service to the dignity and greatness of those it venerates. We have done what we could. Written there are the names of every man and woman who died in the Battle of Libra. Many were soldiers. Many were only those who felt they must fight, and they died righteously, no matter which faction they represented that day. Their names are etched in the remains of Gundam Altron; it is fit. We will rebuild. But we must not forget why we had to.'

 

**

 

'Sir.'

Quietly posed. Bancroft had given him time, more time than he'd asked for. The sun had set probably half an hour ago, leaving only a limn of purple on the horizon. It was near dark.

Treize drew a deep breath of cool air. 'I'm coming,' he replied, but found that his feet did not move. After a moment, then, Bancroft came to him. The squelch of his polished boots in the mud of the riverbank was not careless, but rather fearless. Treize was grateful for men such as him. Men who followed gladly, men who led with their hearts. Good men.

When they stood, not quite shoulder to shoulder, because no-one was fearless enough to dare that with him, even Bancroft, his secretary said, 'Do you miss it, sir?'

'Miss what?' He turned his face up to the starlight just beginning to peek out from behind the clouds above. 'Battle? No.'

Bancroft stared around them. The wreckage of mobile dolls, the twisted heaps of suits and shields and armour that would not rust for many years yet rose like ghostly monuments amongst the crosses dotting the hills. 'The dead, then,' he guessed.

'The dead,' Treize agreed.

'They've made it beautiful here. I remember it.'

'You were wounded at Libra, weren't you. I'd forgot.'

From just behind him Bancroft raised a hand, pointing unerringly. 'They put up the tents there. Hospital. There was smoke and ash everywhere. There was char in the rain for months. I never felt clean. You wouldn't know it, to see the place now.'

And now there was a river where Libra's beam canon had scored the earth open. A gross chasm had healed itself, with a little hard work and human intervention. As metaphors went, there were surely less obvious ones, but as subtlety had a place, so did such blunt-force reminders.

Treize sighed. 'One more moment,' he said. 'I'll come.'

The stone in his pocket was blueish, a bit too dull for slate, but if it had taken a polish it might have been teal. It only mattered in that it might have been a better match for the place he chose to lay it to rest. The great helm was more than half-buried, too heavy to be pried out by human hands, and grass was already growing high along the golden spires of the noble crown, but the teal of the flared gundamium dragon horns was unblemished. Treize found it cold, when he placed his hand there.

'Sleep well, young friend,' he murmured. He left the stone at the base of the cross beside the helm, and followed Bancroft back to the waiting caravan, the plane, the reporters, the Sphere. Life, and all its unending demands. He didn't look back.


	3. Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

Quatre took a number from the ticket dispenser and penned his name carefully in the register, adding his ID number in blocks beside it. He ducked the impersonal gaze of the civilian behind the desk who swiped his card for the charge. He took the seat nearest the door, tucking his elbows in.

'Long queue today,' the man beside him observed.

Quatre kept his face turned forward. 'Yes,' he said briefly.

'You all right? You look a bit piqued.'

Quatre shifted just a bit closer to the door. 'Fine. Thank you.'

Silence followed. Only awkward til the man had his number called, and abandoned him, no doubt gratefully. Quatre checked him from beneath indifferent eyelashes. Tallish man, dark hair with waves that were soon falling shorn to the tile as the barber buzzed him. He'd remember the face, if he had reason to. He looked away again before the man could notice his interest in the mirror.

'Number Thirty-Four.'

His. Quatre stood. The barber in the middle of the left was open, waving him in. Quatre started for him, stepping wide around a man who finished his own cut and rose to leave. His barber swept the seat free of clippings and unfurled the cape for him.

'What's this?'

Quatre stiffened. He sought the pips on the man's collar to identify his rank-- always the first refuge. 'Major,' he replied, straightening his arms and waiting at attention. Blonde, blonder than Quatre, eyebrows so pale they almost vanished. Nordic maybe. And huge.

The Major raised a pointed chin high. His chilly voice silenced the low hum of chatter about the shop. 'Who allowed this?'

No-one answered. Dared, or even dared to guess what he meant. Quatre found himself the target of every eye in the place. A radio played music, the only scratch against the sudden tension.

'In future you will apply to me first for permission.' The Major stared down at him, black predator eyes in that cold face. His hand was cold, too, seizing Quatre by the cheek. Turning him to the right, back, up to the light. The difference in their heights was comical, except for the potential of violence, of worse, communicated by the man's nearness, his bulk, the pressure of his much larger hand.

The Major gestured sharply with a snap of his free fingers. To the barber. 'Never less hair than this,' he ordered. 'And if he comes in here without written direction from me, I want him on immediate report.'

'Yes, Major,' the barber quietly agreed.

The Major had yet to release him. Quatre breathed shallowly, his jaws clamped together. He didn't meet the eyes burrowing into him, but he could feel them. His palms were damp with nerves, adrenaline.

'You're a plain little thing, aren't you.' A hard tweak to his hair was the end of it. 'We want the public to recognise our pet Pilots,' the Major told the room. 'Not a hair out of place whilst we can still get use out of them.'

No-one moved til the Major had gone. Quatre wiped his hands on his trousers. No-one looked directly at him, a small blessing. He made it all the way to the door before anyone spoke.

'Agent.'

'I'm sorry, I have to go.' He pushed at the door, but felt fingers pluck at his sleeve. He stood stiffly.

'Agent, I can refund the charge,' the desk hostess said. 'If you give me your card again.'

He supplied it. It took only a moment, and she rushed it, as eager to have him gone as he was to vanish. The moment it was back in his hand he was out the door and onto the kerb. He scanned quickly for the Major, but didn't see him. One of the cars, maybe, in the traffic on the street. But not here, and that made here safer for just a moment more. The faster he got back to the barracks the better. He tucked close to the shop wall, and after it the mess, dodging the open alleyways and keeping the sun on his shoulder.

'Heya. Hey, wait up.' It was the man who'd been sitting beside him in the barber shop. Quatre didn't slow, so the man ran to catch him up, falling in beside him. 'You all right? After the scene in there.'

'I'm fine,' Quatre said again. 'I'm sorry, I've got to go.'

'Are those the only words you know?' The man blew out a noisy sigh. 'Hey. Shake my hand at least? My name's Ralph.'

Quatre slowed enough to limply press his hand, but didn't give up his trajectory. It took fifteen minutes to cross the base at full speed, and any longer was a risk. 'Quatre,' he mumbled.

'Winner.' Ralph kept pace with him, gazing down curiously as they hurried. 'I knew of the Pilots,' he said. 'I was White Fang, during the war.'

That pricked Quatre to wonder, for a moment at least. He deliberately didn't chase it down. 'No-one talks about the war,' he answered.

'Mm.' When he cut a sharp corner, Ralph was a step behind him, then back at his side. 'So was the Major,' Ralph added.

For that, Quatre slowed. Information was information, and White Fang had been an ally, once. Before Libra. He didn't trust, he didn't indicate that he wanted it, but Ralph rightly took his quiet for intrigue.

'Sogran,' Ralph said. 'His name is Sogran. He was a commander. Fought like a banshee out of hell. No love for the Field Marshall, or General Khushrenada, as he was then.'

'Hush,' Quatre said, alarmed. 'People may hear you.'

'So you can speak.'

'To spare us both a day in solitary.'

'Then I'll count it as a favour.' Ralph was sober-faced, then, dipping his hands into his pockets, and they walked on in silence, if not in comfort. Neither spoke until they reached the end of the street, the end of the shelter of public buildings. From here, Quatre would be exposed til he was back at Barracks Three. For a moment, a thoroughly foolish moment, it was on his tongue to ask if Ralph intended to accompany him the entire way. Ralph hadn't the bulk of a man as big as Sogran, but he walked with an air of easy confidence, and there was a forthrightness in him that might not stand the usual messing about. But even as he thought it he chastised himself. There was no aid in that corner and anything that looked like it was only illusion.

'I have PT in half an hour,' Ralph offered. 'I need to get back. Maybe I'll see you round.'

'I shouldn't expect so.' Quatre hit the street-cross button at the post, waiting for the signal for pedestrians. 'Have a-- pleasant day, then.'

'Yeah, um, you as well.' Ralph hesitated, tapping one finger on the post. 'About Sogran. He's trouble.'

The bloody light wouldn't turn. 'It's all trouble,' Quatre said.

'Not everyone in Preventers is your enemy, Quatre. But-- some will be. If he's found you, he won't be letting you out of his sights quickly.'

Finally. The pedestrian walk lit. 'Thank you. I have to go.'

'Quatre, just-- watch your back, eh.'

He'd done nothing but that for a year. He didn't bother to acknowledge that as he crossed. By the time he'd met the kerb opposite, Ralph was gone.


	4. Zechs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Your opportunity to challenge me came and went with the war,' Treize told him softly. 'Try now and you lose all your advantage. Or will you be Oedipus, after all, to slay your own father and invite your doom?'

Zechs' smile was a small pointed thing, a dagger in disguise. 'You are half the man my father was,' he said.

'Your father is dead,' Treize pointed out bluntly. 'And it took a girl-child to resurrect his kingdom. Not you.'

They were to it. Zechs all but screamed it behind those shuttered eyes, the very stillness of his body trumpeting it before he gave it words. His hands, his fine capable hands, clenched once on the crystal chesspiece they held, then finally made their move.

'Knight to check,' Zechs said coolly. 'I want Sanq.'

 

**

 

'The man is frugal to a fault,' Zechs said, propping himself on the edge of Treize's desk. When Treize offered wine, he took it, wetting his throat and then setting the glass aside. 'He's not so stupid he doesn't see the value in paying his people to reforest, but he wants the revenue of foreign investments, and the best pay-offs come from companies who want land. If you want him, you'll bribe him.'

'How much?' was all Treize asked. He sat, himself, in one of the leather chairs facing the hearth. For a man who loved his material comforts, and Treize most certainly did, he'd picked a cold home for Preventers Home Base. Luxembourg City's metropolis still reflected its mediaeval roots, down to the mansion-like building Treize had repurposed for offices within the city. Once a casino, then an art hall, then a bunker, and finally an abandoned, crumbling relic off Rue Notre-Dame, it had housed Treize in his exile during the war. Zechs would have thought it irony in another man, to pick a hated prison as his new home. It was Treize, however, and likely meant nothing more than that it was convenient, recognisable, and easily refurbished. Just cold.

Zechs sipped his wine again. 'Annual aid of two billion was his ask, no earmarks or conditions,' he said. 'I explained, of course, that it would have to be approved by Parliament.'

If Treize had an ironic bone in his body, he would have smiled for that. The Parliament voted when and how Treize told it to, whatever title Treize gave himself in the moment. Secretary of the Security Council had no more meaning than Secretary General of the Earth Sphere United Nations and, for that matter, Imperator. But the appearance of modesty served a political end, and Treize only gravely replied, 'Tell him one and a half. And royalties on the patents. His foreign investors will still come pleading for favours, and he can tax them legitimately when they buy their way into agriculture. I'm sure that will satisfy all parties.'

'Most generous.' Zechs left the desk and carried himself to the other chair, letting deep cushions and brushed suede soothe muscles that ached from too many long flights in cramped shuttles. 'This place is dismal,' he said. 'You should have taken Brussels when they offered it.'

'Preventers need room to grow. And seclusion to grow at our pace.' Treize rested his wine glass on his knee, gazing into the fire as if he were looking into the future. He'd never looked behind him, at the least. Zechs, long familiar with that gaze, turned his eyes to the contemplation of the painting above the mantle. Titian, he thought, the recumbant beauty on sensual display for her admirers, yet the languid tilt of her face into shadow suggested mystery. Like the man sitting beside him, who meant what he said and did exactly what he promised he would do, yet never seemed entirely in the here and now.

Zechs said, 'I want Sanq.'

Treize only nodded. 'I've thought you'd come to me about it eventually.'

'It's mine by birthright.' He marshalled his arguments, had written speeches in his head for weeks, but Treiez's simple acceptance derailed him. He hesitated, wrong-footed. 'You will-- agree?'

'Sanq will be a symbol or a thorn no matter who rules it. It means too much to Pacifists and the Resistance alike.' Treize raised his wine, but did not drink. He turned the delicate glass this way and that, the red burnished deep garnet by the firelight behind it. 'What will you do about your sister?'

'She'll abdicate.' He could not guarantee that, and didn't, but he thought Relena would be amenable. She was politically astute enough to know a civil war, even one waged in the courts, would only devalue the worth of the throne. She would step down and cede her rights before she'd risk long-term damage to their kingdom. 'I'll put her second in line. After my heirs.'

'Ah. You intend to marry, then.'

'I'm young,' he said, having plotted this conversation, too, and found himself even more unsure with it on his tongue. 'I... have time.'

'And a son too young will have too many years to wait for the throne himself.' The wine turned, and turned. 'Keep your sister in the public eye. Let your people remember her, approve how she conducts herself, consider her a real successor to your throne. Save a child for the day when Relena can no longer be trusted, and give the public a fairy tale to dream about.' He sipped, at last, eyes dipping closed in pleasure. 'A pretty baby to grow up before the country, not a rival to take your throne before you're old.'

'Yes.'

'You've thought it through, then.' Treize drank, and settled deeper into his chair, propping one shined boot on the small ottoman. 'What do you want from me, then?'

'Your backing.'

'Obviously, or you wouldn't have told me. But what do you _want_ from me?'

It had been a long time since he'd loved this man, but admiration was grudging. He'd never learn enough to beat Treize, and he'd never be able to pretend to that immortal confidence, either. Zechs swallowed against a dry throat.

'Three billion a year,' he said. 'And the right to troops.'

'Troops in a country that refuses to bear arms in battle.'

'The right.'

Treize nodded as if the nuance pleased him. 'There are no standing armies now,' he said. 'By law. Even I can't change that with a wave of the hand.'

'I won't be undefended.'

'You can have a cohort of Preventers. Build me a base.'

'And have men under your banner with your weapons while I have none of my own? I'm not a fool.'

'Of course not,' Treize said, and turned eyes that smiled opaquely to him. 'You're an ally. And you'll have all the privileges attending that relationship. It would be in our mutual interest to base Preventers in your borders.'

To foster Treize's notion of a peacekeeping force. Zechs had never believed it and believed it no more now that it came with an unspoken threat. Preventers in Sanq would mean mobile suits.

And with mobile suits came factories. Jobs. Tax revenue. Manufacturing controlled by the state that hosted it. And border guarantees.

If it was a mistake, it was at least a mistake he could not escape making. He inclined his head.

'Excellent,' Treize said, and toasted him. Zechs reached back for his own glass, and they clinked in cheers. Neither drank.

 

**

 

'You might convince the young man his face won't break if he smiles,' Treize murmured.

Zechs glanced back. Yuy, scowling at the world from atop a horse, like a statue with a particularly gruesome grimace. Zechs faced forward on his own mount. 'Too many new ideas ruins a man like that,' he said.

Treize chuckled indulgently. 'I had the same thought about you, once.'

Zechs made a grimace of his own. He'd long abandoned the masked helmet that had protected his identity, but not so long as he might have done. Treize had never believed in his reasons for wearing it at all. Revenge, Treize had told him, is only vengeance in the sunlight.

'A bad day for a hunt,' Treize observed then. 'I'm tiring of winter.'

'You should have got out of Europe when you had the chance. Build your empire in the desert.' Zechs spotted the rustle of tree limbs overhead and readied his rifle, but the bird never showed. The yipping dogs had long outpaced them, their braying echoing off the rolling hills beyond the woods. 'You have your Secret Face on,' he said. 'Have I stumbled on some new plan?'

'When am I not plotting?' Treize guided his horse toward the stream, dismounting to walk the final paces. Zechs joined him, and they watered their mounts, as their coterie spread wide about them, four remaining seated to guard the perimetre, some of the older officers drifting upriver with talk of luncheon. Yuy gave his horse to the cadet riding with him to care after, and prowled the woods as if he could will something monstrous out of the gorse, just for the variety of it.

Zechs bent to scoop a palmful of clear water for himself, shaking off the excess and sweeping his hair back to cling damply to his cheek. He helped Treize with the reins of his black stallion, catching at the bridle when Kafir tossed his great dark head, prancing hooves splattering both of them with mud. Treize wore one of his rare smiles, the real ones, the one that came with fresh air and momentary escape from the pressures of leadership. Zechs slid his fingers down the leather reins, to cover Treize's hand with his own. That was only momentary, too, the most either ever dared in the company of spying eyes, but Treize's smile deepened, his eyes that particular blue that only warmed for Zechs.

He swallowed, and stepped away. 'I've been plotting as well,' he said, strapping his rifle into the satchel behind his saddle. 'When the Council were here two weeks ago...'

'They approached you. I heard about it.'

'I'm sure.' Not all the spying eyes about them were friendly in equal measure to the man beside him and to Zechs himself. 'Then you know why they approached me.'

'I have my guesses. I knew you'd tell me in your own time.'

'There are factions in Sanq who would see the throne go to the lawful heir.' When he turned back, Treize was only watching him, none of those guesses discernable in his solemn expression. Zechs offered his flask of whiskey, and they drank together. 'When Relena assumed the throne it was in the belief that I was dead,' he said finally. 'Her inheritance is only through me.'

Treize inhaled and held it, the crisp winter air in his lungs. Zechs watched the beat of his pulse in his throat, the fall of his strong chest in the loose open-collared shirt he wore as if the bite of coming snow couldn't touch him.

'I never thought I could bind you to my side forever,' Treize admitted then. 'If anything, I thought you'd leave when you satisfied your vendetta with those who murdered your family.'

'The war was... you needed me then.' He could say that, their voices so low only they would hear each other, not the others who pretended not to be fascinated by their quiet conversation. 'You know I'll stay if you say you need me now.'

When Treize handed back the flask, it was only to cover the caress of his thumb down Zechs'. That it still raised the familiar, delicious tingle in his gut never ceased to amaze. That Treize would dare it so publicly flattered him. That Treize cared to do it at all made his heart seize tight.

'You are the first and best friend,' Treize said, recalling their childhood oath. He let go, and Zechs had to clench his jaw to stop himself from reaching after. 'What friend would I be if I didn't let you go when you needed to? Just tell me one truth. You want this?'

He had a harsh mouthful of alcohol, swallowing down the burn. He stuffed the flask away and rescued his horse's wandering, pulling him tight to attention. 'I want Sanq,' he said. 'It's what I've always wanted.'

Treize held Isen as Zechs planted a boot in the stirrup, swung up to the saddle. He handed up the reins, and Zechs waited then as Treize took his own mount, unaided, though everyone but Yuy darted in to help, too slow for the white-toothed grin Treize tossed at all of them.

'I have renewed hope,' Treize announced. 'For this hunt.'

'Liar,' Zechs muttered.

'Hope for the future, if you like.' Treize's laugh roused their entire company, though it surely mystified those not party to their discussion. But shoulders were level, spines straight as the men remounted, even the horses prancing eagerly. 'Come,' Treize said, and dashing Kafir with his glorious master bounded through the stream, with the Lightning Count only a pace behind on his sleek grey.

 

**

 

But it was Treize, and Zechs had never understood him, truly.

'I want Sanq,' Zechs said.

'When I'm ready,' Treize answered.

Not when _you are._ When I am. Zechs felt protest spark and die in one beat. Embarrassed, ashamed, furious with the futility of it, he slammed the door on his way out of Treize's office, and stared down anyone foolish enough to look askance.

Yuy unfolded from the wall. 'What did he say?'

'Let's go.' Zechs did not storm-- he wanted no rumours, and his behaviour would catch enough talk as it was. But he couldn't help his quick stride, wanting only to be gone from here. Yuy trailed him, at first, then paced him when Zechs shot him a dark glare. They said nothing more til they were out the grand hall and through the tall gold doors into the weak Luxembourg sunlight. His driver had the car ready, and Zechs ducked into the dim-lit cave, Yuy behind him. 'Go,' he called, as soon as his driver was in the front. The car was rolling almost simultaneously with his command.

Yuy handed him a bottled water. Zechs ripped off the cap, churlishly hurling it to the carpet. When he'd drunk all he wanted, Yuy finished it, and hunted for the cap, curling it into his palm as if he had unearthed a precious artefact.

He said, 'Duo did tell you to wait.'

'Heero,' Zechs snarled. 'I don't give a damn what Duo thinks about anything.'

Yuy screwed the cap back into place, and replaced the bottle in the limo's bar. He settled back with a shrug, closed his eyes, and napped the entire drive back to barracks.


	5. Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

It was easy enough to ignore the video camera. The cameraman stayed where he'd been directed to, the far end of the truck, with only a tiny red dot to indicate he was even doing anything, his head bowed over the bulky equipment in his lap. It was the photographer next to him who was making all the noise. It shouldn't even be audible, little digital clicks and whirs nothing next to the hum of the engine, the tyres bouncing in ruts in the road, the low talk of Preventers passing the travel time, the creak and whisper of uniforms and weapons as people shifted wearily. But Duo heard it. Couldn't not hear it, every time the cameras turned toward him.

Not all units had an embedded reporter. It was getting less common, as the world got used to seeing Preventers everywhere-- they hadn't been exciting in a while. But it was good public relations, made for cute feel-good stories on the news, to show Preventers out on their peacekeeping missions. Bringing food to isolated villages. Shooting down a pack of violent tribal oppressors and leaving democracy thriving in the wake. Opening medical centres to care for wee sick children and war-widowed mothers. Rebuilding a couple of houses out in the countryside, so some photogenic family could be grateful for the cameras.

So the Sphere could see a former Gundam Pilot making good on the promise of peace. See the Pilot adjust to his new environment, the programmes went. See him learn new habits as he acculturates to the new world order. Watch him pitch in to help, watch his new allies accept him, incorporate him to the herd. Why, soon he'll be normal, even.

Duo wiped sweaty palms on his camoflage. Rubbed damp off his upper lip, and tried to keep his face turned away from the photographer.

Their truck squealed to a halt, and the agent nearest lifted the canvas sheet off the back, jumped down to lower the ramp. Duo waited his turn as the company made an orderly exit, carting their packs out with them, automatic rifles all aimed safely at the dirt. The sun was bright, making him squint as he shuffled out. He reached for a handhold on the roof, slid a steel-toed boot into a wedge beside the fibreglass gate.

Good timing. The rubber mat lining the edge was suddenly not there. He never saw who yanked it, but practise saved him. He only went to a knee, instead of tumbling down the ramp. Tasted copper in his mouth from a bit lip, but he'd been ready and hadn't tensed. No-one was looking in his direction, no-one smirked, not with the cameras there. But no-one helped him up, either. He hopped from his kneeling position and made it to the dirt without further incident, moving rapidly to keep the rest of the company in his sight, ahead of him, his back protected by open space on the perimetre of the group.

Sainte-James called order from the middle of the pack. Duo shifted to keep the man in his eye-sight. 'Split up,' the captain directed them. 'BOLO for armed militants, but a sweep came through here last week and reported it clean. We're not anticipating any civilians left in the town, but if you find anyone bring them back central. Sergei, set up the wireless. Open comm link, everyone, Channel 4. Maxwell.'

He was almost never directly addressed. Caution made him hesitate. Experience made him hop to, wary of being singled out but knowing it would be worse if he called attention to himself by lollygadding. 'Sir,' he reported, stepping closer.

'Escort the crew,' Sainte-James said. 'You know the routine. Keep them in line and keep them out of fire.'

'Yes, sir.'

'We'll be with you?' the reporter asked him, as the rest of the company dispersed, boots clapping on cobblestones as they spread out from the main square down the silent village streets. Duo set his comm on his shoulder, loosened his sidearm in its holster. Racked a round in the chamber. 'I thought there wasn't supposed to be gunfire?' the woman said nervously, staring at him.

'Residents were air-lifted a couple months ago,' Duo told her shortly. 'Doesn't mean the place is empty now. You need to wear the helmet we gave you. Same for you, camera guy.'

'I thought the area was pacified?'

'You want to risk a headshot on everyone being happy about pacification, you do it on your own time. Wear the helmet.' Duo slung his rifle to his back, and waited for them to get in front of him. The cameraman kept trying to keep him in frame, and settled finally for walking backward, the reporter and photographer guiding him away from hazards like loose garbage and lampposts. Duo set his jaw and tried to ignore it.

The village was like every other place he'd seen in the country. Empty houses lined the streets, lace curtains drawn on homes that would probably remain unoccupied for a year or more. Resettlement was a slow business, and that assumed that whoever had lived here had survived the war. Survived the refugee camps after the war. The company who'd been through before Duo's group had cleared any abandoned vehicles, pushing them all toward alleys and dead-ends where they could act as barricades. Duo checked each one, using his can of spraypaint from his belt to mark his passage. He left a bag on each one, too, emptying his duffel by the time they'd reached the outskirts along his route. An MRE, a bottle of water, a map to the nearest refugeee centre, a pack of batteries, a firestarter, an aluminium emergency blanket. He'd distributed hundreds of them on tour, and never seen a survivor carting one around. But it made for good PR. The photographer took plenty of captures, anyway, the cameraman getting in his face every time he turned around.

'I need you to stay to my right,' he said finally, irritable and tired of being saddled with people who had no business in a war zone, even if the war was technically over. 'If you can't do that I'm escorting you back to the truck.'

'Sorry.' The reporter shooed her crew into place, but doggedly maintained her prize place at his side. 'Can I ask you questions?'

'Ask whatever you like.' He didn't guarantee her answers. He checked a pile of cardboard in a sheltered doorway, using the butt of his rifle to lift it away. No bodies, now, at least, but it might have housed someone recently. He kicked it clear, sprayed it with his mark.

'You're Duo Maxwell?'

That explained Captain pushing the crew at him. They asked for the Pilots less and less, these days, but every once in a while some idiot somewhere came up with a 'human interest' story. 'Yeah,' he said briefly. His paint was sputtering. He shook it, and couldn't get it to work. He tossed it out of the way, into the gutter alongside the kerb. Freed a fresh can from his pack. Touched his comm, and said, 'Maxwell. Clear up Hauptstrabe. Moving toward a culdesac. Wilhelmshoeher-strasse.'

_'Roger,'_ Sergei responded. _'Cintrón is coming up your rear. Not that you mind.'_

'Bite me, dickwad,' Duo muttered, aware of the reporter there beside him. 'Tell him to back off. I've covered this area.' He thumbed down the volume rather than listen for a response.

'Trouble?' the reporter asked.

'Not everyone is polite on prime-time.' He took the lead as they turned up a side-street. The sun was setting, and the temperature was dropping. He didn't like to operate in the dark with civvies, but it wasn't a big village. With ten Preventers they'd finish their sweep in an hour. He ventured up a trio of crumbling brick steps to test an open door. 'Stay out here,' he told the woman.

'We're authorised,' she protested. 'That's the whole point of embedding. Ronnie, show him the papers--'

'I don't want to see any damn-- papers.' He restrained himself with a deep inhale. 'Stay behind me. You get in my way and I'm not going to be too polite about it either.'

There was so much dust flying in the air when he entered the house that he dropped the beam of his torch to the ground rather than try to see through the haze. Pulverised concrete and a lot of tattered plaster. It hadn't been obvious from the front, but the damage was extensive enough. Maybe mortar fire, though he couldn't see a shell or any tell-tale shrapnel. The kitchen on the ground floor was wrecked. Duo stepped carefully around a spill of shattered brick. The reporter tripped over it. Duo halted while the photographer helped her up. He opened all the cabinets, or the ones that hadn't been blown open by the hit. Empty of everything, except for a few tins of food and some broken plateware. A bird exploded out one, when he threw back the door. He almost shot it down, catching himself with his finger about the trigger of his sidearm. He lowered it slowly, wondering that his pulse hadn't even quickened. He blinked dust out of his eyes.

'Are you going upstairs?' the reporter asked, as he sprayed a big 'X' across the stove, bright orange termination on the cracked white porcelain.

'Stairwell caved in,' he said. 'If there's anything left up there it wouldn't be accessible.' He left a mark on that, too, and was about to head through the mudroom when he spotted the carpet. It was laying funny, kind of rucked up. When he tugged, the rug slid away. A trapdoor under it with a handle had been the bump. He kicked it, waiting tensely for any noise to follow. Nothing. He pulled at the handle. It was locked, or wedged shut, maybe. He put his back into it, and got nothing but a drip of sweat in his eyes. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve.

'Can I ask you a question?' the reporter said again.

'I already told you yes. Just don't distract me.' He used his rifle on the floor, listening for hollow space. He couldn't tell how big the cellar was likely to be. He thought it went out under the kitchen floor. He went back out the front, and the crew followed him, as he searched for another entrance.

'I was just wondering what it's like, being a Gundam Pilot in Preventers,' the reporter asked him, impatiently hovering the absolute minimum distance from him. 'It doesn't seem very friendly.'

'What do you expect me to say about it?' There was no power anywhere in the village, so they were losing the light and hadn't anything to replace it. Duo used his torch to scan the yard. From the back, he could see how hard the house had been hit. The second level was definitely uninhabitable, barely standing. He could make out scars on the surrounding houses, too, a whole street knocked out. A mobile unit had been through here, clearly. The burns and destruction pattern meant beam weapons. And those oblong blotches on the grass weren't odd growing patterns. They'd been spots occupied with body bags long enough to discolour. He stared at it long enough for his eyes to strain in the twilight. When he blinked, he thought maybe he'd been wrong. A blotch didn't mean anything. It was well over and done, anyway.

'Is it true that the Gundam Pilots are marginalised?' the reporter asked his back. 'That you're along for the show, not for substance.'

'All it means is that there's enough dirty work to share around.' He coughed to clear his throat. Scanned the rest of the yard. There. He had to clear a couple of crates and the twisted remains of a chickenwire fence. But it was another trapdoor. Deliberately hidden? And hastily done. The rest of the yard was sunken, the packed dirt of the yard hardened from years of feet. This area was softer, covered with sod that had dried out from neglect, but someone had been at pains to disguise it. He used a gloved hand to dig through shriveled weeds. A metal handhold. He braced himself and yanked.

'There are rumours that you had a personal relationship with a highly-placed officer. Maybe that accounts for the hostility in your company.'

It came open. Not much bigger than shoulder-width. Unlit. His torch didn't light on steps, and he reluctantly reached into the dark hole to feel. Steps, just barely, boards lodged into the side of the hole. 'No comment,' he said, and stripped his mostly-empty pack, secured the strap of his rifle tight over his chest.

'Unless you think the hostility is purely about the fact that you're Colonial. There's only forty-two Colonials in all of Preventers, you know. Forty-two out of thousands. You don't think your position as--'

'As what?'

'Gundam Pilot,' she said. He snorted, and her mouth went tight. 'People presumably look up to you,' she insisted. 'You're a symbol of the Colonial rebellion. Of the peace between Earth and the Colonies. Don't you think your behaviour has repurcussions for all the people who are watching to see whether you in particular can integrate to Preventers?'

'No comment,' he said, and about-faced, dropping his feet into the hole far enough to find the first step. He let his weight shift to begin the climb, and stopped when a shadow fell over him. 'What?'

'You're going in? I'm coming too.'

'You're not carting that camera down there.'

'I can carry the digital,' the reporter said stubbornly. 'Look, I'll keep both hands clear until we're down there.'

'Your funeral.' He climbed without arguing it. It wasn't far down, only six feet or so. He got a faceful of loam as she came in after him, and grimaced up at her. He only caught her on the way down to avoid getting yelled at later, if she tattled on him, but released her immediately and unhooked his torch again.

'What is this place?' the woman asked. 'Storage? A secret passage?'

'I could find out if you'd back off and let me.' Crates, like the ones up on the surface. He re-evaluated that, now, prying off a lid. Maybe they'd just been trying to get away with the contents and had only been able to take what was portable, do their best to the hide the rest in case they made it back for a second pick-up. He used his pocketknife to slice a thick plastic sheet, torch between his teeth. 'Shit,' he said, kneeling slowly. He touched his comm, but didn't use it.

'What is it?'

Guns. A whole wooden crate full of guns. The next crate was ammo. He heard the woman take a picture of him, that little grating zoom of the lense. He replaced the lids quickly.

It was some kind of shelter, a bomb shelter maybe, but stocked to the roof. The guns were one thing, but he found more weapons on the shelves, a bucket of grenades, a shoebox of flares, a box of military-issue body armour. Wrapped in a wool blanket on the bottom shelf, a projectile launcher, fully assembled and ready to use. Serial number melted off.

'Resistance,' the reporter said. Not asked.

He pulled off his gloves with his teeth. The launcher was cool to the touch, sleek. New. A bag of rounds was in the blanket with it, each as big as his fist. He counted thirty. Enough for a decent attack. And those guns. Resistance, yes. But abandoned. Left behind, along with whatever plans it had been meant to fulfil.

This time, the mechanical whir of the camera was the sound of a file being deleted. The reporter knelt beside him. She showed him the screen, but he didn't look at it, just shook his head. Don't, he said, or meant to say, but his voice died with no conviction behind it. Her hand, smaller than his, roved the smooth surface of the launcher. She picked it up. He let her. The way she handled it said more than words. It was a familiar gesture, far more competent than her stumbles and chatter had been. She lifted it to her shoulder, adjusted the sight, fitted a round, and racked it, just as Duo had his pistol. Armed enough to bring the roof down on both of them, and obviously someone who knew how to do it. Someone who probably had, once. She met his eyes, cold as the weapon in her hands, now.

But the moment never came. She handed it over, though he never asked her to, never so much as twitched at her. She held it out til he took it. He wrapped it back in the blanket. Stored it on its shelf.

They climbed out, her first, and she leant down to help him over the lip, her grip firm on his. Duo shut the trapdoor, and sprayed his mark. He touched his comm, bringing it back to volume.

'Maxwell,' he reported in. 'There's nothing here. Coming back in.'

'Maybe we could get some shots of you two against that wall with the graffiti?' the photographer asked, retrieving his camera and checking it. He seemed disappointed to find no pictures from the shelter. 'Too dark?'

'Nothing down there,' the reporter said.

'We could use a little filler,' the cameraman said. 'I liked the looks of that boarded up grocery.'

'Whatever you want,' Duo mumbled. There was dirt under his fingernails. Grime on his palms. He wiped them. 'Not a good idea to be out after nightfall. I don't care what you do as long as we do it fast.'

'Mim? What do you think?'

'Mr Maxwell--'

'Agent.'

'Agent. What do you suppose happened to the people who lived here?'

'I suppose they died,' he said. 'Let's go.'

'He's a downer,' the cameraman muttered to the reporter. 'We can't use any of his dialogue. I told you we should have tried to get that other Pilot, the blond one we used before.'

'No point,' the reporter said. 'This'll just end out background shots anyway. Mister-- Agent Maxwell. Thanks. I think we've got all we need.' She stood unblinking under his gaze. Blank and blithe as he'd thought she'd been all along, but her smile was just a little bit fixed. Not nerves, not obliviousness. He was the first to look away.

'Great,' he said, and turned his back on them. He didn't listen to their whispers as he led them out the street. He didn't look back when three sets of footsteps became two, and he could hear her babbling about deadlines to the cameraman. The photographer sneaked back to join them a minute later, not long enough to have retrieved anything. But when they passed the gutter where he'd thrown out the first can of spraypaint, he noticed it missing. He didn't ask what had happened to it, where the photographer had disappeared to for those sixty seconds, what he'd done with the time, why he had paint on his index finger now.

'Done showing off for your fans at home?' Sainte-James tossed him a fresh thermos of coffee, back at the square. 'Our resident celebrity hero.'

'Fuck off.' Duo threw the coffee at the reporter, let her drink it. 'I didn't ask for it.'

Didn't like that. Didn't matter. 'You're holding us up,' Sainte-James said, but Duo was already climbing into the truck, taking his seat in the back. He picked at the dirt beneath his nails. It wouldn't come out.

His hands didn't shake. He curled them into fists, flattened them on his knees. Tried to resurrect something like the feeling he'd had, the first of these useless trips. Tried to resurrect what he would have felt, once upon a time, seeing a stash like that. But he didn't feel anything, not even at the prospect that the photographer had been back there leaving a clue for someone else to find, that the reporter might not be all she seemed. It wouldn't mean anything. It wouldn't matter. He hadn't asked them to include him, he hadn't encouraged them, he didn't think, and he'd probably never hear about it anyway if they got themselves killed trying to liberate some old Resistance hideout. Just another day, and tomorrow would be exactly the same.

The photographer took a portrait of their company, everyone leaning in from their benches in the truck, everyone grinning and waving. Duo kept his back to the wall, his head turned away. The photographer promised to get a copy to everyone who wanted it. No-one asked him for his contact, and he didn't offer it. Just closed his eyes on the sound of that click and shutter and save.


	6. Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

It was a rush to get through the showers before curfew and lights-out. They were always on duty til nine, and it was impossible to check out and get across base in less than a half hour, and sometimes they had to wait for the showers to clear out before they could risk it. Often it left them just enough time to scrub strategically and dash to their bunks, still damp and sprinting away the good of their wash. When they couldn't manage it, when they didn't have the privacy or the time, they switched off, one vulnerable, one watching.

'Time for your nightly wank show?' Braden smirked at them, as Quatre guarded Trowa's stall. Quatre rigidly ignored it, kept his hands loose, ready to deflect. 'Don't know why they don't just build you two love-birds a nest of your very own. Spare the rest of us.'

'Leave them alone,' FitzPatrick ordered, and Braden went. FitzPatrick tossed a bar of soap at Quatre as he passed. Quatre didn't attempt to catch it, and it clattered to the tile, slid into Trowa's stall. 'Freaks,' FitzPatrick muttered, but didn't bother them further.

Trowa exhaled. He kicked the soap out of his way. The washing liquid dispenser creaked as he used it, tepid water splashing Quatre's shirt as he shampooed his hair. 'I'm starting to think we might actually get through the week,' he said softly.

'Don't jinx it,' Quatre said. He checked the doors, and tugged a razor from his pocket. 'Shave while you're in there. You'll get in trouble if you let it go another night.'

'We've got time?'

'A few extra minutes.'

The moment Trowa was out of the stall Quatre was stripped and stepping into his spot. Trowa towelled dry as Quatre hurriedly soaped himself, underarms and neck and the dirty pads of his feet. He turned his face into the spray long enough to plaster his hair over his eyes, but dashed a hand to move his fringe.

He jumped when hands lit on his shoulders. 'Just me,' Trowa said. He had the other soap bar, and smoothed slick over Quatre's tense muscles. 'You shouldn't keep your back turned so long.'

'Nor you.' Quatre about-faced, peering past Trowa's shoulders, but they were alone, and both of them so attuned to any noise they'd have noticed it if they weren't, anyway. Trowa's palm drifted down his chest, over his belly. Quatre licked his lips. Trowa's face was turned away from him, toward the locker room, but the pulse in his throat was a trembling flutter against skin still flushed from exposure. 'We have time,' Quatre said, when Trowa's hand curled over his hip.

Only just. None for tenderness. Trowa wrapped him in his own towel as Quatre crouched. Trowa was only barely hard, when Quatre clenched him in a hand, used his mouth to rouse him the rest of the way. Trowa worked at drying Quatre's hair as Quatre sucked on him, laving away pre-ejaculate and pumping the shaft with his fist, rushing it as much as he could. He slipped a little on the slick tile, grabbed Trowa's thigh for balance, and Trowa's hand on his head held him in place. Heart thudding sickly, he gave up even the courtesy of pretending seduction, and simply swallowed as much as he could, cramming his nose into the dark hair of Trowa's groin. Trowa shook, his fingers deafening Quatre as they clamped over his ears, fucking his mouth shallowly. 'Oh,' Trowa whispered, gritted teeth grinding audibly, and he came.

Quatre swallowed away the sour oily taste of it, checking the doors warily. Maybe they would get through the week after all. He was careful, climbing back to his feet. Allowed himself the tiniest comfort caution would permit, Trowa's lips brushing over his. Trowa's thumb made a silent caress on the shell of his ear, apology and thanks in one.

'I can do for you,' Trowa murmured rustily, but he was eyeing the clock, and already straightening, pulling himself together.

'Not tonight.'

'You could use it. You've looked ready to shatter for--'

'Not tonight.' He made a few skips of the baths, cleared the corner toward their locker. He checked the other aisles before making for theirs, dropped his towel to the bench and yanked open the door. No surprises waiting inside. They weren't allowed locks and he'd become more than used to the pranks, but neither could they bring their clothes with them into the showers, where it was all too easy to knock them into puddles. Dragging wet and dripping into the barracks had resulted in more than one night scrubbing toilets in punishment, and they needed sleep. He yanked a fresh tee over his head, shorts over his legs. Trowa dressed even quicker, tossed him a comb as he finished with it, already heading for the exit. Quatre was only a few steps behind, at his back when Trowa opened the door.

Nothing in the corridor, either. Quatre breathed deeply, not yet lulled, but glad, nonetheless.

'I can cover you,' Trowa offered.

'No time. You'll barely make it back to Seventeen as is.'

'Quat.' Trowa held him back when he would have started for the stairs. Brushing away a little scrim of soap from his jaw. 'You're okay?'

He forced his mouth to curve. It felt like moving marble, but Trowa slumped on seeing it. 'Quat,' he started.

'You two!'

Quatre sprang back, and Trowa was in front of him before he could stop it, holding him back with an outstretched arm. Quatre's shoulders hit the wall, a spike of danger making unhappy swirls in his gut.

'Sir,' Trowa was saying. 'We're on our way.'

'Ninety seconds, Barton,' Captain Ursa snapped. 'Beat it.'

Trowa's hand on his shirt seized tight. But he said nothing to aggravate it. He was gone, and he didn't look back, not with Ursa staring them down.

'Winner,' Ursa said. 'You're supposed to be in bed. If you're incapable of obeying a simple standard order, I don't have any problem moving you to a unit with more discipline.'

Quatre swallowed drily. 'No, sir.'

'No, sir, what?'

'I... I don't have a problem. Sir.'

She snorted her disbelief. 'You're on patrol tomorrow,' she told him. 'Slip up and you're gone, and your little fuckbuddy won't help you.'

He could only nod. Barely even that. She was already walking away. Quatre waited til she was around the corner to run. He took the stairs two at once and jumped the landing, dashed up the hall, and banged through the door of his bunker just as the PA blasted the curfew alarm and the lights crashed out as one blink into darkness. He threw himself at the ladder of his bunk, swung his legs up, and flattened himself to the mattress.

'Cutting it awful damn close,' Isidoro muttered from the bed beneath.

'Inspection!' their sergeant shouted, torch burning a path through the bunker and lighting the footpath between beds. 'No talking!'

Quatre lay where he'd landed, trying to control his breathing, trying to be as quiet as possible. He shifted, just to ease a cramping muscle in his neck. Something not the cotton of his pillowcase touched his cheek. He jerked away, choking on a gasp, and it crawled. It was alive. He twitched up a hand to swat at it, shove it away. Rat. It ran over his body, and he kicked to get it off his bunk.

'What's that noise?' The sergeant was headed towards him. Quatre tried to still, but the rat was on his leg. He thought he heard muffled laughter as he kicked at it again.

'Winner!' The torch blinded him. 'What the hell are you doing up there?'

'Nothing,' he protested, but the rodent slithered down his pantleg and he felt tiny claws on his bare skin. He bit his tongue to stop his instinctive yell.

The sergeant stared up at him, grim and disbelieving. Quatre dug his fingernails into his palms til the sting became blood. The torch swept over him, stopped the rat's hunt across his sheet as it, too, froze in the light of discovery. Sheltered by Quatre's legs, it huddled, and the sergeant didn't see it.

'One more peep and you're on report,' the sergeant informed him, and marched off the rest of the aisle. The door slammed behind him as he exited.

Quatre made a grab for the rat, and got it. It bit the webbing between his thumb and forefinger as he scrambled to hold it. There was no-where to go with it, once he had it, and he only realised, too late, that the sergeant's torchbeam had gone no further than the door, alert to trouble inside. Swallowing down his disgust, Quatre just dropped the rat over the edge of his bunk. He heard it hit the floor and run away, a scritch and scratch and squeak that had his bunkmates groaning.

'Serves you right,' Quatre hissed, shaken. He found the shirt that had been holding the rat trapped til he'd been there to find it in his bed. He flung that over the side, too, between the wall and the bunk, and wiped his hands furiously on his sheets. He couldn't do anything about the bite, except worry it had broken skin. He felt along the mattress for any more surprises, and didn't turn anything up. He lay back, trembling.

 

**

 

The course was only five kilometres, but it made for a harrowing run on good days. It was early October, and had been cool enough with approaching autumn for most the week. But by mid-day it was well over thirty degrees, and a full day of physical exams had kept the company out in the worst of it, exposed to the sun and heat. They got only a short break when one of the newer recruits fainted from dehydration, but then they were herded to the course as scheduled. The dummy packs and heavy wooden batons that substituted for their usual weapons seemed twice as heavy, and Quatre was not the only one sweating away the little cups of water they'd been allowed at the last halt. He struggled to keep his dripping hair out of his eyes. Agents with regulation-shorn hair had no such difficulty, and he envied them keenly.

He queued with his company as they waited their turn on the course, contained in a chicken-wire fenced area at the start. The sun was absolutely baking them, unsheltered, and Quatre was sure the sergeant was leaving them standing to feel it more. Their long-sleeved camoflauge unis became sweat-slicked torture. His feet felt swollen in his tightly laced boots, and a day of running, jumping, standing endlessly on concrete yards had amplified pains in his heels and his knees. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and gripped his fake gun, rolled his shoulders as much as he could in the straps of his pack. Every one of the thirty kilos dragged at his sore shoulders and strained his neck.

'Go!' the sergeant shouted at last, and the company surged forward. From the middle of the group, Quatre had a slow start, shuffling til they were past the gate. When they finally had space to run full speed, he pushed to keep pace with the five in his rank. The pounding of their feet raised dust off the dry dirt of the path, and he tried to breathe through his nose, but soon it coated his tongue, his throat.

The first mud pit alleviated the heat but sucked at his boots, caked his uni, dragged him down with extra weight. He used trampled grass at the side of the pit to haul himself along, holding the baton high above his head as he stumbled through the muck. He'd fallen to the rear by the time he crawled out of the pit. He forced himself into a flat run to catch up, but lost his position again as they hit the artificial hills. No more than twelve or fifteen feet high, they were nonetheless steep enough that he used his hands as much as his feet to climb them.

Sand-bag pellets the size of tennis balls were flying on the way down the hills, leaving bruises when they hit. Quatre got one on the cheek and another clipped him in the elbow, but he managed to dodge the rest, using his fellow agents as cover and pushing himself back to the centre of the group, safer amid bigger bodies. His smaller size did him another favour at the barbed wire crawl, keeping him from snagging as much as the others, but he slowed there to ensure he didn't expose himself by getting too far ahead. He helped free one of the women from a tangle of wire, scratching his bare hand and wrist, and she nodded her thanks without quite meeting his eyes. He took a pellet to the head when they crossed the first kilometre line, and she caught him when he stumbled.

At two kilometres they finally hit the woods, and the sheer relief from the sun was enough to give him a shot of energy. His legs were burning from the dozens of hills, and he was clumsy now on exposed roots, tripping into branches that leapt out to whap him in the face. He was bleary-eyed at the first mud pit, falling to his knees in it and stuck long enough that he lost his place. He did worse at the first of the giant steel caltrops, falling over the spikes rather than gracefully climbing them. Whenever he had a clear shot, he ran, but then came the walls, and his height betrayed him. He wasn't tall enough to climb them unaided, and none of his fellows spared the time to aid him. Long practice had mastered the awkward hop and one-handed grab he made at the horizontal bar, scrabbling to hold long enough to swing a mud-caked leg over the wall and leverage himself over, falling to the dirt below and rolling back to his feet to stagger on.

They were out of the woods and back into the sun all too soon. More of the hills, and now with additional obstacles, testing their endurance as well as their balance. He hustled through wide tyres, using his baton for balance on the high rubber rounds and tripping as often as he cleared the tall circumference. Nets grabbed at all loose buckles and the long tips of their fake guns, dragging them down til a companion could free them. Quatre had no help here, either, and just barreled forward, swerving and bobbing frantically. He slipped the rope bonds and crawled on, panting dry-mouthed. The final obstacle was the worst, hard even on the agents who were head and shoulders taller than he. More tyres, upright this time, and too big for any but the largest to easily climb. It was meant to encourage teamwork, and some found partners who would push and pull each other to the top, but no-one offered him a hand. He used his baton like a piton, driving the wide end designed like the butt of a rifle into the wedges between the tyres, and using it as a climbing ladder. It lost him all advantage of his hard running, though, taking him three times as long as everyone else. He was quite alone when he reached the top. He sucked in a deep breath, coughed it out as his seared lungs protested. One more breath, and he jumped.

He landed in icy water, made murky by so many muddy bodies before his. He sank like a stone, weighed down by his heavy pack, and let it carry him to the bottom rather than fight it. Once his feet found solid purchase on the tarp lining the waterpit, he drove himself forward, walking the bottom with his baton outstretched to find the forward end. He was almost out of air when he touched it. He planted the baton at an angle against the concrete, stepped on it, and flapped a hand above his head for the ledge above him. He trapped the baton between his knees and heaved himself out of the water with just the strength of his arms. He gasped raggedly as he flailed, kicking to tip himself over. If he lost the baton, he'd have to go back in for it, and he was flagging. But he just made it over, and he was up again and lurching along for the shack at the end of the course.

The shed was perhaps thirty metres long, and he was alone in it but for the monitor. The shock wires hanging from the ceiling were all swaying-- he couldn't be too far behind if the motion of other agents still had them swinging. He pushed his hair out of his eyes, and dropped flat. He pushed himself on his elbows and knees over the wet dirt, head down.

It was no good. The shed wasn't designed to allow anyone to avoid the shocks. When a live wire caught his hand, he flinched. Another found his bare face, another his neck. Even through the protection of his sleeves he felt the shocks, soaking wet as he was. He was gritting his teeth in real pain by the time he neared the exit. There was a tangle of live cables on the dirt. If he crawled over it, he'd be exposed to the entirety. If he stood, however, he'd be tangled with the wires hanging from above.

He shoved himself to his feet. It was like being stung by a thousand jellyfish, electricity rippling over him, swallowing his cry. He plummeted out the exit, twitching uncontrollably.

After that, the final mud pit was nothing. He trudged it, alone. When he crossed the finish line, the rest of his company were already there, sprawled out on the grass, recovering. He joined them, letting himself fall to his side, his cheek pillowed on his arm.

'Time,' the sergeant marked him. He made a noise of dissatisfaction. 'Worst one yet, Winner.'

'Yes, sir,' he croaked. 'Sorry. Sorry.'

'How bad was he?'

That voice was familiar. Blinking against the blinding sun, Quatre peered up. His gut clenched. The Major. Sogran.

'Four minutes thirteen seconds behind Klytië.'

'Unacceptable.' Boots, polished to a high shine and resisting the unsettled dust everywhere, appeared beside Quatre's head. 'You'll run it again,' Sogran said.

I can't, he almost said, but his throat was too dry and that saved him from slipping up. The Major's cold face bore no expression, none at all. Quatre turned himself onto his stomach and pushed up on shaking wrists. His company were all watching, and he didn't let them see anything on his face, either. He dragged his baton high in his arms, and set off for the fencing at the course gate. The Major followed him, and stood there watching til the sergeant joined him, and called go.

Hard as it had been the first time, the second was worse. He was tired and thirsty, and he did worse at everything from the mud pits to the caltrops. He tore the skin from his palms trying to save himself from a fall off one of the climbing walls, and he fell again on the tyre climb, his baton still wedged in place and lost. His hands were numb, his arms tingling oddly when he hauled himself up to it again, and he only just managed to wrench it out again. His usual trick of using the baton for getting out of the water didn't work, and he had to dive for the baton twice before he got out. In the shock shed he seemed to hit every wire, and emerged with his bottom lip bit and dribbling blood down his chin.

His company were all sitting in the shade of a pavilion nearby when he crossed the finish again. The sergeant clicked off the timer, looking at him with uneasy reluctance. Quatre didn't need to be told he'd been several minutes longer this time round. He only kept on his feet through sheer insanity, turning a bleary stare on the Major.

Sogran snapped his fingers for the stopwatch. The sergeant passed it slowly. Sogran only glanced at the time before lifting his gaze to Quatre.

'Unacceptable,' he said.

Quatre was too parched to speak. So he didn't. He didn't wait to be ordered, either. He just walked away, his boots dragging as he headed for the gate again. He didn't stop for rest, didn't let them call him back. He just pushed through the gate, back out onto the course.

He slid down the hills on his backside now, skidding in a cloud of dust and rock and scraping his legs when the fabric tore. He pushed himself to the last of his reserves streaking past the pellets, and only got caught by one, a hard hit to the right hip that made him limp til he pushed past injury too. He ran pell-mell through the woods, leaving the track for clearer paths weaving in and out of the trees, skidding on soft cushions of leaves and loam. After each mud pit he rolled in the grass to scrape off the worst of it, shedding the extra weight of accumulated clay. He acquired a sharp line of pain across the soft belly, folding himself over the climbing walls rather than wrench his arms trying to pull himself over the top. His raw palms were on bloody fire when he took a running leap onto the tyre climb, heated nearly to melting by the hot sun, and he shimmied up the side gripping with his legs and using the baton like a crossbar this time, threading it through the middle of each tyre and just stepping his way up like a monkey climbing a tree. He took the time in the muddy pool to drink two handfuls, careless of the grime, just needing the water. He pitched toward the shock shack at a dead run, bursting inside to the dim with his head down.

And he might have made it to the end like that. But he'd forgot the tangle of cables on the floor.

They wrapped about his ankles like snakes, and he crashed, falling into a burst of agony. He yelled, his voice swallowed up by the humid closeness of the shed. The wet on his clothes was no protection, and his heavy pack flattened him. He couldn't escape it, couldn't crawl out of it, every inch of his skin on fire. He tried to roll away and it tangled about him, dragging with him. He was sobbing in the frenzy, couldn't tell anymore where the exit was, the hanging wires catching him every time he tried to rise. The mist of his own evaporating sweat, the moisture of his uni made a hissing fog, gas leaking. His Gundam was leaking air, he was trapped, he would die of suffocation, the hiss of Wing Zero's beam weapon like frisson, frying him, frying him, and everywhere was the flat green and yellow grid of Zero's terrible reality, urging him on toward disaster--

A slap across his face brought him out of it. He fell limp, staring up at the man holding him.

Man. Sogran. Sogran had dragged him out of the shed, and they were a sprawl in the dirt, together, the Major's crisp uniform now smudged and wrinkled, his pale hair flying about his head.

'Wh—' Where. When. Why. He wasn't sure. His head was spinning. He wasn't entirely sure of the ground beneath him, of Sogran shaking him. He blinked, tried to, but it was difficult to tell the swirling darkness behind his eyes from the crazy burst of stars that was daylight.

'Drink, you little fool.' Sogran put a canteen to his lips. Water nearly drowned him, cool and clean. He gagged it down. 'Small sips.'

He was too spent to so much as sit up. Sogran supported him, got him perpendicular to the ground, at least, held him upright when he swayed. Quatre clung to the firm arm holding him, til he realised he was doing it.

'How long,' he managed. His throat hurt. He really had been screaming. He blushed in shame, scrubbed shaking hands over his face, left gravel and daub behind. 'They saw?'

'They're around the bend. They'll be there when you finish the course.'

He'd be lucky to stand, much less finish. He was one massive ache, still shaken from that-- memory? He'd been so sure he was in his Gundam. That it was merely another of Zero's nightmares made real. Maybe it was. What hell was worse than this?

Sogran blew air out his nose, looked away from him. 'You've let fear make you mediocre,' he said then. 'You were almost at record-breaking time, you know. Before you hit the shed.'

He was too exhausted to make sense of that. 'I was cheating,' he admitted. He coughed, and Sogran made him drink again to calm it. 'I was-- not correctly--'

'You weren't cheating. You were smarter than your fellows. Why do it the way they do? Is that the easiest, the proven best? The course isn't impossible. There's a way around every obstacle, if you think your way through it.'

He was too dazed for that. He shook his head, mindlessly. Sogran capped the water, tucked it into his belt. Considered him with those dark unfeeling eyes, shark's eyes that evaluated and found weakness, wanting.

'Most of these men are nothing,' the Major said. 'They should fear you, not the other way round. Show them. Show me.' He stood, brushed himself off. 'Finish the course. Tomorrow you'll beat them on the first round, or we do this every day til you can.'

'Why are you--' Anger filled him in a volcanic rush, a hot burst that left him shaking again. 'Can't you hound someone else? I can't do it! It _is_ impossible, I'm smaller, I'm worn out, I--' Tears filled his eyes, and he dashed them away furiously. 'This is just because I'm a Gundam Pilot, you hate me and you want me to fail!'

'I want to see you crush them,' Sogran corrected him icily, and Quatre shut up, biting his tongue as Sogran stared him down. The Major put out a hand, snapped his fingers. Quatre reached uncertainly. Sogran pulled him to his feet. Held him like that, for a moment, not in comradeship, not in kindness. He pulled at Quatre's wet hair, arranged it in a fringe over his forehead again.

'We need our symbols,' Sogran said. 'We need people to recognise you, know you, see you alive. In reach. Finish the course.'

His knees popped, his steps wobbly as jelly. He firmed himself with a deep breath. He couldn't run again, not battered as he was, but he finished.

 

**

 

'Salisbury steak,' Ralph ordered. 'You, Quatre?'

'The beef stroganoff,' Quatre quietly requested, and took the tray handed to him with some suspicion. It wasn't one of the cooks he knew, which meant it might be safe, but the unknown was its own issue. Ralph would have chosen a table in the middle, but Quatre diverted quickly to his usual spot along the back wall, where he could see everything, be near an exit. If Ralph divined the reasons behind his selection, he said nothing about it. He watched as Quatre checked his food thoroughly with his fork, broke apart the breadroll, strain the juice through a napkin into a fresh cup. His brows were drawn and frowning when Quatre finished, but he said nothing.

'Heard about the thing at the track,' he murmured finally. He salted his own food generously, ate without fear. Quatre was careful, testing a noodle first, then a small sliver of beef, waiting to be sure it had no effect.

When Quatre didn't answer his not-quite-query, Ralph said, 'He's still watching you.'

Quatre took a bite. It was tasteless. He chewed mechanically. 'I know.'

'You strike me as someone who doesn't make an effort to stand out.' Nicely understated. Quatre rubbed at his raw palms. 'Did you talk to him? Talk back?'

'No. I didn't do anything.'

An agent from another company passed too close to their table, and Quatre tensed til she was past. Ralph tensed because he had tensed. Shrugged it away, and ate his meal, quickly and efficiently forking it in. 'We'll have to deal with it.'

'We won't. Don't.' Quatre sipped his juice, wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. The mess hall was filling up, and he'd have to go soon, to be on time at the track again. He finished the juice first, wanting the hydration. 'I'm dealing with it.'

'This is dealing with it?'

'When I need help I'll tell you.'

Ralph paused with his fork at his lips. He shrugged, passing it off, but Quatre didn't gratify it, and Ralph's smile faded. 'Sure,' he said. He swallowed the bite, and stood, taking his tray with him. 'No, it's fine. Look, I've an appointment at one. Just-- watch yourself, right.'

Trowa joined him only a minute after Ralph was gone, sliding onto the bench beside Quatre, rather than put his back to the rest of the mess, as Ralph had done unthinking. Quatre pushed his plate at Trowa, and fiddled with his breadroll, breaking it into smaller crumbs, his appetite deserting him.

Trowa was even more diligent in checking his food, putting aside a suspicious sprig of unidentifiable herb and leaving the radius of food around it untouched. 'Who was sitting with you?' he asked quietly.

'Just a man.' Quatre licked a smudge of butter off his finger and cleaned his hands on the edge of his napkin. 'He's taken an interest.'

'Did you do anything?' Trowa demanded, spearing him with apprehensive green eyes.

'I'm dealing with it,' Quatre said again, and Trowa's mouth went tight, his eyes dropping away. 'Eat while you can.'

Trowa obeyed. Beneath the table, Quatre put his hand on Trowa's knee. Only for a moment. Trowa's shoulders lifted and fell in a bone-deep sigh. They didn't speak again.


	7. Zechs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'You've seen this, I imagine,' Zechs said, removing the disc from the dossier and pushing it across Treize's desk.

Treize picked it up, turning it in the light to catch the rainbow on the sleek sides. 'What is it?'

'Newscast by a crew that followed several companies of Preventers. Twenty-three minute segment, what they're genially labelling “investigative journalism” these days.' Zechs tapped his fingers on the hard leather of his dossier. 'The crew were on a watch list. As you'll recall, we allowed them limited access anyway. A decision you might come to regret.'

'Press freedom is a contentious issue,' Treize murmured, a verbal shrug of indifference not matched by the way his eyes followed the silver disc's graceful swoops. 'Better they think they've won any amount of access than to hold them off and spread disinformation.'

'So you said. I don't think this segment bears that theory out.' Zechs provided the transcript, laying it between them, but Treize ignored it. 'It was sanctioned, so it's on the internetwork. Two hundred thousand views since it was uploaded to WebDoc.'

Treize grimaced at that, finally putting his new toy aside. 'Such torturous language. Two hundred thousand individual views? Repeated viewings by a dedicated few? Inflated by the website itself, to optimise web-crawler results?'

'I'm looking into it. It's already been rerun twice on television, with splinter clips appearing on the three major outlets and at, at last count, seventeen national news programmes. I'll have the viewership for that in the next report. But you agree, it's alarming.'

'I am not alarmed.'

'It's a twenty-three minute segment featuring more than eight minutes of interview or footage of the Gundam Pilots.'

'And so? We want them seen. Shall I paint their portraits or hire bards to write ballads? We use the news and even this atrocious internetwork development to suit our own purposes. The vagaries of the modern age, my friend.' Treize smiled whimsically.

Zechs scowled in reply. 'You're not blind to this danger. Put me off if you like, but consider this. Making the Gundam Pilots into heroes of your modern age risks enabling a cult of hopefuls. There are still Resistance cells in operation.'

'Indeed.' Treize rose from his desk and went to add a faggot of wood to the fire. He had servants in plenty who would have leapt to do it for him, and one had been by earlier to lay the fire for them when the snow had started falling mid-morning, but Treize tended the hearth himself, blowing soft air to raise the flame, using the tongs to shift the logs to an efficient placement. He rested an elbow on the mantel and stood gazing down at the cheery result, pensive now. Zechs stretched out his long legs, waiting to be informed of the results of that over-active mind.

'I should like to ask you a personal question, if you don't mind,' Treize said finally.

It was not what he'd been expecting. He'd been expecting to be disagreed with, put off again. 'Of course,' he said, before he could think better of it, and pressed his lips tightly together when he realised the position in which he'd placed himself. Treize would know a lie, but refusing to answer after he'd already agreed would put him out of place, and would reveal more than the truth.

'You've come to know two of the Pilots quite well.'

'Is that a euphemism?' he bit out, revealing rather more than he meant to. He looked away. 'You know the answer to that.'

'I don't ask what you think. I ask if you _know_ them.'

Zechs stared at him. 'I suppose,' he said, at length. 'We talk.'

'I've only ever spoken with Heero Yuy. Once, here, in fact, not long before the end of the war. I believe he came to kill me. Instead he provided me with Epyon.' Treize thoughtfully poked at his fire, rested his chin on his shoulder. 'The other I've never met at all. Oh-Two. Duo Maxwell. How did you come across him?'

'He mouthed off,' Zechs said. 'He was in the glasshouse for it. I heard of the incident, was attempting to get to the bottom of it. He refused to follow orders, quote, because they were so profoundly stupid as to be a deathwish.' Zechs hesitated, and added, honestly, 'He was right. His captain and nearly half his company didn't walk out of that ambush.'

'Interesting.' Treize faced him again, but stayed by the warmth of the hearth, arms crossed over his chest. 'He has a tactical mind? Or was it merely so obvious?'

'The captain wasn't the cleverest. Jakob Florentin. You'll remember him from Academy.'

'Ah.' Treize's smile this time was sadly amused. 'Not a gifted young man, no. I recall his name on the death reports. He should never have risen so high.'

'We have dozens of officers whose primary recommendation is that they survived long enough. You have been meaning to clean house.'

'So I have. Perhaps that's more urgent than this issue of news segments. Or perhaps not unrelated. The Preventers should be more competent, at least in public view.'

'Most of our ranks were military first.'

'And have all the faults of their training.' Treize was silent, and Zechs waited him out. 'But Maxwell,' Treize said. 'When he refused his orders, did any join him?'

'Two. Those who survived the ambush certainly wished they had.'

'The two who joined him-- colonial?'

'Hardly. We don't station them together. One was OZ, actually, Branica Oneida. She was one of Noin's last trainees.'

'Interesting.'

'They were punished, of course, if you're worried about that. Demeritted.'

'But only Maxwell served a full confinement for his mutiny? No matter,' Treize said, waving that away. 'One makes an example where it serves best. Where is Maxwell stationed now?'

'With the Rovers. Hence the television crew, and hence my concern about this broadcast now. The thing comes very close to hagiography. Allowing this--'

'Yes.' Treize stopped him with an upraised hand. 'I'll watch it.'

'That's a start.' Zechs turned to read the clock as it began to chime. It was eleven, and he was late to his staff meeting. 'You're off to the Hague?' he inquired, rising and gathering his files.

'This afternoon. I return in three days.' Treize returned to his desk as Zechs left it, reaching for the phone that began to light up with on-the-hour calls. 'We'll have dinner, if you're available. Zechs--'

He paused at the door. 'Yes?'

'Of the two. Yuy or Maxwell. You like one more than the other?' Treize had the phone receiver in hand, but lowered it. 'Not as a companion. But when you talk.'

The question mystified him. 'Yuy doesn't,' he said. 'Talk. He's the most close-mouthed man I've ever met. Maxwell talks even when you try to shut him up.'

'Which one listens best?'

'I don't know.' He breathed an impatient sigh. 'Maxwell, I suppose. If Yuy has any inner life at all, he doesn't share it with me. Maxwell at least is interested in what happens to him, so he pays attention.'

'Thank you.' Treize seemed satisfied with that. 'Enjoy your weekend,' he said, as he put the receiver to his ear, and settled back to immerse himself in the next task. Zechs only shook his head, bemused. He left with nothing further.

 

**

 

Dinner, it seemed, was Treize's menu of Gundam-related surprises.

Zechs stepped out of his car to the kerb, turning to say something to his driver about a pick-up later in the evening, and found himself eye-to-eye with Duo Maxwell.

'What are you doing here?' he asked.

Duo angled a shoulder at him, reaching around him to flip the cardoor closed. 'Your guess is as good as mine,' the smaller man said. 'You planning on lingering in the rain? I think I'm supposed to hold doors for you, or something.'

'You can precede an officer if you don't stand around waiting on him first.' Zechs did head for the steps up to the large gilt-gold doors, open today to the marble foyer beyond. A footman provided immediate relief from the drizzle by offering him a warmed towel; Zechs dried his face and hair as Duo stood with raised eyebrows, too lowly for a similar toiletry. He tossed his flannel at Duo, who snorted and wiped himself. 'Do you have a message for me?'

'No,' Duo said.

'Then why were you waiting for me?'

'I wasn't.'

There were times when he was absolutely sure Duo did it on purpose. Irritated at allowing himself to be provoked by it, he turned on his heel and headed for the spiral staircase to the left. Duo followed him at a sedate pace, falling behind on the climb, and by the time Zechs reached the second storey landing, he walked alone. He headed for Treize's office, stowing his gloves in his belt, leaving his damp overcoat with a maid who passed him by. He knocked at Treize's door, and let himself in without awaiting the answer.

'Interminable call,' Treize murmured, thumb discreetly over the mouthpiece of his telephone. 'Help yourself to a drink. I'm attempting to end it.'

'Thanks.' Zechs served himself from the carafe of wine awaiting them at the bar, and settled into his usual chair before the hearth. He detested a rainy autumn. Luxembourg would be awash with streams up every street by the time he left tonight.

A scratch at the door drew his eye. Treize flicked a finger at him-- could you get it? he mouthed. Zechs sipped his wine and rose to open it.

'Hey,' Duo said, and slipped past him while he stood blinking. Zechs opened his mouth to protest, but Treize was waving Duo in, no negative reaction to suggest this was an unwelcome intrusion. Zechs frowned.

'You're dripping on the carpet,' he informed Duo, returning to his seat.

'What do you want me to do about it?' Duo took a pose of parade rest before Treize's desk. 'The peons don't get coat check.'

Treize spared him a reply by finally hanging up his call. He rose, a twitch to the hem of his jacket to tug it into place. 'Good evening, gentlemen,' he said coolly. 'Mr Maxwell. Kind of you to join us.'

Duo's mouth moved. As if he were biting his cheek. Whatever he thought of that, he didn't say it. Zechs snorted at that unusual forebearance. Duo, intimidated? For that alone it had been worth the weather.

Treize poured a glass of his own, and took his own chair before the fireplace. Ensconced in warmed leather, he sighed, dragging an ottoman near with the hook of an ankle and propping a booted foot on it. He angled a glance back at Maxwell, who stood watching them warily. 'Sit,' Treize said, not quite a command, not solely an invitation. He indicated a third chair-- unusual indeed, and Zechs should have noted it immediately, a new arrangement to the space, creating an arc before the hearth.

Duo shook his head slowly. 'I'll stand,' he said. He cocked his head, damp hair swinging with the movement. 'Nice dead deer on the wall. You kill it?'

Zechs turned back to face the fire, shaking his head. 'You have strange ideas, my friend,' he murmured to Treize. 'Enjoy the fruits.'

Treize sipped his wine. 'Do you hunt, Mr Maxwell?'

'Sure. They give me free access to guns all the time around here.'

'Mm.' Treize might have smiled at that; he hid it with the rim of his glass. Zechs, too used to Duo's brand of assaultive humour, did not smile, but he did drink faster, the better barrier to what was sure to be a trying evening. If he'd known Treize was going to put him through this, he would have pled a headache and dined alone in his quarters back at the base.

'Since you're standing, then,' Treize said, 'go pull that map down on the wall.'

Zechs half expected another smart remark, but Duo obeyed. 'Time for geography lessons?' he asked, standing on tip-toes to reach the pullchord. He stayed near the map, quite a good one on thick canvas screening, hand-drawn and beautifully detailed in the topography of the full Earth and its satellites in space. If Duo's eyes lingered on the colonies, he was bright enough not to make it obvious.

'Tell me three hot areas on that map,' Treize instructed.

Lord. Zechs recognised that tone. Treize was teaching a lesson of some kind, making a point in that obscure way he had of circling the goal til you were almost too dizzy to fight it. Zechs finished his glass in a large swallow and rose to refill, not with wine, but brandy.

Duo looked him askance, and Zechs shook his head. It was Duo's turn to suffer. Duo bit the insides of his cheeks, again, his face going hollow, his brows just barely pulled together.

'Rio,' he said. 'Nairobi. Kolkota. Heard it got up to ninety there last week.'

'Not temperature, Mr Maxwell.'

'Oh.' Duo poked the map with a fingertip, to watch the screen shiver. 'Same three cities.'

'Rank them in the order I should worry about them.'

'The Brazilian economy is shit. That's nothing new, but its trade commission is so fractured it's on the verge of collapse. Nairobi--' Duo backtracked to Treize's desk, nosy fingers skimming the files Treize had left open, the humming plastic casing of the computer, the cup of pens. He picked up a small, blue crystal pyramid weighting down a pile of receipts, buffed it on his sleeve. 'Newly discovered uranium deposit. It has people thinking stupid. Bengal hasn't had a good break since 194. Tourism is down and people are bitching.' He squinted through the crystal, and put it down, not where he'd found it, but deliberately on the midline of the desk. 'That Kolkata thing was bullshit.'

'I should hope so,' Treize murmured. 'I'm not a tourism board.'

'No, but you're probably concerned about Hibiscus.'

Zechs looked sharp at that. The existence of Hibiscus was not widely known, and shouldn't have been known to the smirking little idiot who so casually revealed classified information. 'Treize,' Zechs began, but Treize quieted him with a glance. Duo's chin was high, daring them to question how he knew.

Treize only gestured at that third chair again. 'You might as well sit. You're going to be here a while.'

Somehow it was courtesy that undid the boy. He was all elbows, even knocking the stand of iron fire tools and catching it before it toppled. There was a faint splash of colour across his cheeks, highlighting his freckles. He gripped the arms of the chair with white-knuckled hands, tried to catch himself, then. A deep breath, and level eyes.

'Wine?' Treize asked. 'Brandy?'

'No thanks.' Duo's throat bobbed in a swallow. 'I like vodka better.'

'I'll bear it in mind for our next visit.'

'Great.'

Treize quirked an eyebrow. He sipped his wine, and crossed his legs on his ottoman, popped the collar of his shirt, loosened his tie. A man relaxed in his own environment, unthreatened and secure, Zechs thought, watching him and wondering. Of course Treize would be at his most comfortable when those around him were off-balance. Treize had always stacked the cards.

'Are your accommodations sufficient?' Treize asked, as if only idly curious. 'No problems any more with your fellow Preventers?'

Duo's expression slid toward the braced. 'I'm fine,' he said shortly.

'I thought for a time that Zechs' interest in you would cause difficulty, but he seems to have moved on.'

Oh, and that was barbed, delivered so smoothly. Zechs froze his own face, teeth set. He should have known he'd been brought into this for a reason. It still seemed aimed at Duo, not at himself, but he took it for the warning it was. No disruptions of Treize's careful planning. No muss, and no personal dramatics. Barbed indeed.

Duo must have read the heavy pause for his own conclusions. He was unwontedly deliberate in his answer, not looking at Zechs at all, only Treize. 'His loss.'

'Oh? Were you much attached to him?' Treize looked about him for the bell. Twisted a long arm for it, to give it a pearly little ring. He propped his chin on his hand.

Duo's eyes flickered. He was too young for more control than that, the effort plain in everything he was not doing to distract from what he wanted to do. 'I don't get attached,' he said, but it emerged more like bravado than fact, and he licked his lips. 'But that doesn't have anything to do with you and me. So why don't we just stay on task?'

Duo was rescued by the butler and footmen arriving with their supper. No-one spoke as a small round table was carried to their spot, pewter trays laid out with covered dishes, fine porcelain plates and silverware with elaborate curliqueues placed on pristine linen napkins. Drinks were repoured, Duo acquiring a full goblet of chilled white, Zechs quietly requesting only water, sure now he didn't want dulled senses after all. Treize, in control as he was, ordered a cocktail, and murmured appreciatively over the drink when the butler prepared it from the bar. 'You really should try it,' Treize said lightly. 'Bancroft turned me on to them. Tasty little things, complimentary of a good meal.'

'Bancroft drinks cocktails because he can't stomach whiskey,' Zechs said. The footman served Treize first, as was fit, and Zechs got the second plate only a second later, butter-poached lobster tail on a bed of watercress and citrus, heirloom tomatoes arranged in a fan of bright cherry and lemon along the edge.

Duo wet his lips with his wine. If his hand shook ever so slightly returning the glass to the table, he covered it quickly enough by hiding it in his lap. 'This shit will give you a heart attack.'

Treize touched his fork to the salad, sliced a thin cut from the lobster. 'Vegetarian?'

'Not necessarily.'

'A young man in your position is surely not worried about living long enough to die of heart attack.' Treize ate, and Zechs followed his example, to avoid drawing attention to himself. Treize alternated bites with sips of his cocktail. Zechs kept his head down. Duo looked at the footmen, the butler who hovered ready to jump at the slightest need, the two men across him who generously outranked him and seemed intent on pretending nothing was out of the norm.

Duo lifted a tomato slice. With his fingers. He pulled it apart, spilling seeds to the plate. 'In my position?'

'I refer to your former profession,' Treize said. 'And the reputation you are rapidly accruing in your current.'

'I have a reputation?'

'Oh, yes. You're rather a television celebrity, isn't he, Zechs? Another hundred thousand hits in only three days. I believe they call it “going viral” now.' Treize shook his head over his cocktail. 'Atrocious, this internetwork jargon everyone uses so ruthlessly these days.'

Duo looked to Zechs. Zechs refused to meet his eyes. He made short work of his salad, chewing steadily.

Duo inhaled. Cleared his throat. 'You want this?' he said flatly.

'You may leave it. I can call for an alternate meal, if you like.'

'Do you even listen?'

Treize sectioned the last of his blood orange and ate it. 'Do you ever say anything of substance?'

'Occasionally.'

'Then we'll wait for that happy occasion to find out.'

Duo shoved at his plate. It moved no more than an inch before the footman grabbed it up. Duo crossly sat back, catching himself before he showed more displeasure than that. He sat quietly as the footman cleared his plate, replaced his silverware with fresh, and served him the entrée, a sizzling chargrilled filet mignon with mustard crème and wild mushrooms. Treize moved on to the next course as well, heartily digging in without waiting on his dining companions. Zechs finished at his sedate pace, but still managed a bite before Duo.

'Excellent as always,' Zechs said.

Duo's mouth was tight, his lips whitening as he pressed them together. The silence stretched to a breaking point, then. Treize knew better than most how to let the tension build, an operatic instinct that knew the clink of silver, the thunderous sound of mere chewing could be maddening without interruption. Zechs wiped his mouth on his napkin. Treize gestured for more of the asparagus. Duo picked up his wine, but didn't drink it. It rang awkwardly against his plate when he put it down.

The sudden scrape of Duo's chair along the rug was flight and offencive in one. Duo was on his feet, startling the butler, at least, who couldn't believe the rudeness and made an abortive move to stop him. Treize only looked up from the saw of his knife, and let it happen. Zechs swallowed drily.

Duo might have meant to leave, might have had no plan at all. He got as far as the desk and stopped. His fingers hovered over the blue pyramid, but he'd got no reaction to it before. He went for the files instead. Blatantly reading records he had no right to, which answered for how he'd known about Hibiscus. Glancing over his shoulder to be sure he was observed. At the bottom of the inbox he found a red-foldered file, tugged it free. Lifted it high enough that the two behind him had no difficulty making out the name on the front. Kirkbride Asylum.

Zechs froze with a slice of meat halfway to his mouth. Treize noticed-- Treize noticed everything-- but made no move to interfere. Zechs put down his silverware, let them take his plate. He didn't dare leave the table before Treize, but, trapped there watching disaster build, he thought, _should have told him Yuy._

Duo's head rose from the file. 'Wondered about that,' he said, a note of challenge hardening his boyish voice to silky smoothness.

Treize didn't blink. 'If you need reading material, I'm happy to provide access to my private library.'

Duo almost laughed, swallowed it down. His hold crinkled the edge of the file. 'Sure.'

Treize finished his meal, dropped his napkin over the plate. It was whisked away immediately. 'You're dismissed, then.'

'What, already? You needed someone to pull down your map and keep you company while you ate?'

'Quaint notions of hospitality. The little courtesies are most at risk, aren't they.' Treize had another cocktail in hand before he could even glance at the bar, delivered by the butler, who was clearly trying to prevent a brawl or an assassination. Treize thanked him with a generous smile. To Duo, he said, 'Prepare a mission plan for Hibiscus. Submit it through Captain Wong.'

'Wong's an ass. He'll get it wrong.' Duo put the file where he'd found it, wiping one hand down his trouser, not as far out of their view as he might have wished. He was sensible enough to feel nerves, then. 'Assign Crane.'

'It will be Wong,' Treize said. 'After all, I don't know that you'll get it right.'

Duo's grin had too many teeth, too jagged for confidence. 'Whatever you say, boss.' He mimed tipping a hat. 'Dismissed it is.'

Zechs folded back into his chair as the door closed. 'I thought he'd slam it, at least.'

'Doubtless he considered it.' Treize popped his cuffs, dropping the pearl links to the table. 'Fascinating exchange. I see the appeal.'

'If you wanted a dinner escort, you could find one with better manners.' He laid no particular emphasis on _escort_ , but earned himself a knowing brow anyway. 'His behaviour is appalling. I'll see he's disciplined.'

'Nonsense. His behaviour is learned, and he'll be taught better through example, not punishment.'

'No,' Zechs said, dismayed to realise what he'd been party to. 'You're going to take him on.'

Treize's grin was rather lighter than Duo's, a lifting of the lips, a hint of laughter, but no less keen. 'Should I not?'

'What on earth do you think you stand to gain from it?'

'The accomplishment of seeing a difficult thing done.' Treize contemplated his drink, comfortably relaxed in his chair. 'It must be done with one of them. You're not wrong about that broadcast, you know. The Gundam Pilots... they have meaning. But meaning is not inherent. It is not inborn. It can be shaped, remade, honed, and it can be used. If we don't want others to use them, we must get to it first.'

'He won't make it easy. Why not Quatre Winner?'

'I am handling Quatre Winner with other methods. And not Barton, for all he successfully masqueraded as OZ during the war. He's too--' Treize's eyes lowered. He set his cocktail aside. 'Damaged,' he said. 'Perhaps Winner is as well. And you were right about Yuy. He struggles to claim his own agency. Even in turning Epyon over to me the weight of the choice almost crushed him. Whoever moulded him left him hollow. Maxwell must be the one. He's the obvious choice.'

'He'll turn on you,' Zechs said bluntly. 'You pick someone with agency, as you say, and he'll use it to bring you down.'

'He may try,' Treize said.

'I daresay you think you like the idea.'

'To retreat is to be comfortable with failure.' Treize met his gaze with complacency. 'What's the old maxim? Keep your friends close.'

He didn't say the rest of it. The chill of challenge tingled in Zechs' hands, electricity on his spine.

Zechs rescued Duo's wine, and inclined it in a toast. He drank, deeply. 'Thank you for inviting me to dinner. Old friend.'

Treize smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm indulging one of my recent fascinations, the recent history of the bridge between analogue and digital in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I'm seeding in a technological revolution into Gundam. It was clear to me in the show (which was of course written in the early 1990s) that, for all they had spaceships and mecha, they were also on an analogue tipping point but hadn't yet progressed past early mobile phones and LANs with the occasional video conference. I like that weird mix and I play with it here and there. Enjoy the nostalgia factor.


	8. Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

The sun moved behind the clouds. Again. Duo grimaced, and shifted left to try and catch it. He got a wash of warmth over his ear, and turned his face til his nose touched it. When the cloud fell over him again, he sighed.

The sound of hard-heeled boots on the steps took him out of his brief respite. He sat straight, tucked in his elbows. Shaded his eyes and looked up.

'You can't possibly have nothing to do,' Zechs said.

Duo made a show of lounging back on the steps behind him. 'It's my day off.'

'You're in uniform.'

'Sainte-James had a run for me.' His captain usually found a reason to keep him busy on his personal days. It wasn't entirely out of malice-- keeping his resident Pilot out of range of roving gangs of off-duty toughs was keeping the peace, and Duo didn't exactly have grand plans for his eight hours. But he missed the feel of the sun. It was rare to find a time to just sit, in his own thoughts, alone.

Not so alone. Zechs was still standing there looking down at him from that damned height of his, one hand on his hip like he was posing for a damn magazine.

Zechs puffed out a little breath. 'Winter's coming on,' he said, a laconic observation of the banal. He didn't say it as if it had any weight, didn't say it as if he expected an answer, so Duo didn't provide one. He bit his eyeteeth into his cheek, squinting up. Framed by the shadow of the base Postal, rimmed with the fading glow of late afternoon orange, he was every inch General Merquise, master of all he surveyed.

Except for Duo in front of him, and all that baggage. 'Treize will be asking you to dinner again,' Zechs said then.

'Oh, is that what we call it.'

'Dinner?'

'Asking.'

Zechs' mouth twisted. Sour, fading into something not unlike agreement. 'Get up,' he murmured. 'I'll drive you back across base.'

'I can walk, thanks.'

'Don't be difficult.' Zechs offered a hand. Duo bit his lip this time, warning himself against the pain. But he took the gesture. Zechs hauled him to his feet, strong fingers gripping around his.

By 'I', of course, Zechs had meant his driver. The car was waiting at the kerb in the fire lane. Zechs' secretary was standing waiting, or possibly keeping the area free of riffraff. He didn't show any particular surprise at finding Duo with the General, but he did clear his throat til Duo stomped the extra dirt off his boots. Having ensured Duo wouldn't unnecessarily soil the company vehicle, Duo was allowed to follow Zechs into the backseat.

The privacy screen was up, and Zechs rolled up the window, settling back with his long legs stretched out in front of him. Duo propped his elbows on his knees, picking at a loose thread in his trousers. The car started. The secretary tooted the horn for precedence, pulled out into traffic without waiting for clearance.

'You should be wary of him.'

'Treize?' Duo slumped back with a shrug. 'He's your problem. Not mine.'

'He plans on making himself your problem.'

'Shit. Thinks he knows about my underground cockfighting ring?'

Zechs was amused with him, or at any rate resigned to their company. 'Offer him a weakness and he'll make it an opening. It's not enough with him to have a clever mouth.'

'It was plenty for you.' He mimed a blow job, poking his tongue at his cheek. Zechs looked away as if embarrassed. Or ashamed. Or, hell. Maybe the memory was worth something. Duo stared out the window, wishing he was half as clever as everyone thought he was. He couldn't think of anything to say, and the silence sat too heavy.

'Haven't seen Heero lately,' he mumbled finally. 'He's doing okay?'

'He's Heero.'

An obvious yes and a just-as-obvious no. He should have turned down the ride, he realised. He wasn't ready for this, didn't have the energy to fight past the awkwardness. Not quite enough heart to plunge full into it, either, though he gave it a try, launching a toothless bite that suffered for lack of enthusiasm. 'The Field Marshal warned you off us.'

'He was warning me to be more discreet. And he was warning you, too.'

'Warning me about what?'

'That no detail is too trivial for his notice.'

'What's the good of knowing who I fuck if he doesn't do anything about it?'

'He did. You think he chose you by random design?'

Duo faced him. 'He doesn't get to choose me. You didn't, either. _I_ chose. You can try, but you don't get to take that away from me.'

Zechs contemplated him. The old charge was there, still there, and when Zechs leant in, Duo swallowed and cursed himself and still, God, he was an idiot, still chose the wrong thing. Soft lips. A faint scent of coffee, hickory. It was warmth on his jaw, his mouth. When he yielded-- despite himself, to spite himself, he hardly knew anymore-- Zechs pressed his advantage. A brush of wetness from his tongue, coaxing him open, wooing him with gentleness. It worked. His pulse was racing.

Zechs sat back, brushing a lock of white-gold hair from his forehead. The leather seat creaked with his weight, crushed when he put his shoulders back. Duo licked his lips.

'When you're with Treize,' Zechs said.

He could have slapped the man. It made his palms itch just wishing for the nerve. 'You think I'm planning on being _with_ him?'

Zechs smiled his quiet smile. 'I think you're not the one in there making the choices that matter.'

Duo faced the window again, trying to hide his frustration. 'I didn't ask for his attention. I don't even know what he wants. If he wants anything other than to rub my face in his superiority.'

'Oh, he wants many things. Figuring out how to satisfy Treize could occupy a man for a lifetime.' Zechs put his hand on Duo's knee. It was a familiar touch, kinder than the sharp words. Zechs had big hands, appropriate to his size, strong tendons, long joints. They were beautiful hands. Against them, Duo's looked rough, his nails bitten and dirty, his knuckles perpetually scraped and raw. Thin hands, the hands of someone who had spent his life finding small spaces to raid.

'You don't know how like him you are,' Duo said.

'I'm not.'

'No?'

'No,' Zechs said, sullen now, or at least until he claimed Duo's mouth again. Now the kiss was urgent, persuading him with deep drags, oxygen-stealing seal of lips to lips. The caress of his tongue matched the stroke of his thumb on Duo's neck, raising shivers. He was shivering, like a lovesick girl, trembling in her lover's arms. Zechs pulled at his coat, plucked at the buttons of his shirt. Fuck it, Duo thought, if I'm doomed I'd rather go out with a happy ending. The heavy brass snaps of Zechs' uniform popped and he wrenched at the heavy wool. Zechs mouthed at his skin, marking him, just the brush of his teeth enough to shock him with heat. When Zechs guided his hand to the heat between his legs Duo squeezed willingly.

The car rocked to a stop.

'Shit.' Duo wrenched away. 'I-- gotta go. Thanks for, um, the ride.'

'Duo.' Zechs reached past him, prevented him from throwing open the cardoor. 'Don't be foolish.'

'This is the smartest I've been all day.'

'Duo.' Zechs grabbed him by the shoulder. Duo shook him off violently, twisting to kick at him, too, with the heels of his boots. Zechs batted him down grimly. 'Don't you dare. Duo, sit the hell down.'

'You don't get to order me to screw you. The rules aren't that different, Merquise. I open that door and yell and you'll go down, not me.'

'I'm not--' Zechs held the door shut. His lip curled. 'Never mind,' he said flatly. 'Go. Good luck passing the time with Treize.'

Duo all but fell out of the door, one ankle collapsing under him as he scrambled. He grabbed for the side of the door, but would have spilled if a hand hadn't caught him by the elbow. Thinking it was the secretary, Duo jerked back.

'Sorry,' Heero said.

'No, I'm--' Shaken. Shaken at himself, for slipping all over the last ten minutes. Heero looked once, just once, at the loose buttons of Duo's shirt, his mussed hair. Never inside the car, where Merquise was starting to slide out after him, and stopping when he saw who'd been there to greet them in front of the officers' apartments. Not the barracks, not anywhere near his own bunk-- maybe the privacy screen had been up but the speakers had been running after all, he'd just assumed, and the secretary had clearly made assumptions of his own, taking them back to Zechs', not dropping Duo off safely where he wouldn't be tempted to warm someone's bed for old time's sake. Specially since that position was taken, these days.

'Sorry,' Duo said. 'I'm sorry.'

Heero let him go. Duo pulled his shirt closed, fumbling it. Heero helped him fold his jacket over it, and Duo's face burnt in humiliation.

'Do you need escort back?' Heero asked.

'No.' He could barely croak it out. Zechs was moving behind him, waiting for him to get out the way and stop acting like it was a scene, stop making it something that would draw attention. He knew how to act, he just-- couldn't. Couldn't control his expression, his complexion, couldn't even put one foot in front of the other. The blank blue walls of Heero's eyes gave nothing way.

'I'm sorry,' Duo told him.

Heero blinked. His shoulders moved, under his heavy coat, tight with tension. He inclined his head, ever so slightly. Accepting what little Duo could give him.

Duo didn't look back as he ran for the road.

 

**

 

Zechs was right about the dinner invitation.

It came on a silver platter. Literally. A bit of folded paper, itself a fine bit of art, watermarked and filigreed and probably instantaneously recognisable as Something Important. Delivered to him in the middle of dinner hour by a mousy-looking man with a scar along his jaw.

'Do I--' Duo chewed his lip. 'Am I supposed to RSVP for this or something?'

'It's polite,' Scar-face murmured. He supplied a pen from the inside pocket of his uniform coat. Duo took it gingerly. All eyes were on him, and a low murmur of conversation was starting to take on a derisive, grumbling tone. Duo set his jaw as he ignored it. He wrote a brief reply-- started with his best handwriting, an effort on good days, changed his mind and scrawled it, and changed his mind again when he signed his name. His face was hot as he returned it.

Scar-face weighted it down with the blue pyramind paperweight from Khushrenada's office. No coincidence that was there. Duo hunched over his tray, sawing at a tough pork chop with his plastic knife and spork. He only looked up again when he realised the man hadn't moved.

'My apologies,' Scar-face said, somewhat indistinctly. 'His Excellency's instructions were explicit. Only I'm sorry to have... singled you out.'

He wasn't entirely mollified. But at least he knew where to direct his ire. 'It's okay,' he mumbled.

He received a not-quite smile for that. Returned it with a not-quite nod.

'Good night, Agent,' Scar-face said, and about-faced to march off.

Duo abandoned his meal. He'd have less hostile company in a room with his greatest enemy, and he wasn't in the mood for it.

 

**

 

Considering Khushrenada seemed to want to make a scene out of the whole thing, Duo more or less expected the car to show up outside his barracks. So he left early, and walked off base on foot. He caught the public coach half a mile up the road and enjoyed a relatively peaceful ride into downtown Luxembourg with none of the hassle, dust, or unscheduled stops that came along with the Preventers shuttles. If it wasn't going to end with a destination full of confrontational history, he would almost have enjoyed the trip.

But it was going to end with a heaping serving of weird, so when he hopped off the coach a block from His Excellency's most excellent offices, he dragged his feet a lot more than he had when he'd come here innocently last week, expecting only minor disaster, not a rolling penalty for existing while Piloting.

At least it wasn't still raining.

There was a lot of fancy art in the building, and he took the time-- well, spent the time, watching his precise six o'clock appointment come and go-- to look at all of it. Statues. A freize, mostly complete and still being reconstructed, that looked Roman and ancient, but definitely not from middle Europe. The paintings all looked like museum pieces, with big heavy gold frames and serene faces staring out at him. Plunder, probably. There'd been armies sweeping over the continents for a year. They'd probably picked up all kinds of valuable trinkets before bombing the soft targets housing them. It really drove home the point to blow up a couple of galleries and churches and cultural heritage landmarks before you subjugated the people who'd put them there.

It was thirteen past six when he finally found himself at Khushrenada's office suite. Half the third storey, at the head of an elegant marble staircase. The door was burnished cherry, with a big brass knocker. Feeling silly, Duo used it to announce himself. From the other side, a faint voice bade him in. Steeling himself, Duo obeyed.

Khushrenada was at his massive desk, typing away. He looked at Duo over the glasses perched on his nose, his hands stilling momentarily.

He said, 'We have two of the Lions of Delos, if you're interested in sculpture.'

Cameras. It figured. He was lucky no-one had been around to arrest him for dawdling.

He stripped the buttons on his coat and tossed it over a corner of the desk, atop a ream of carefully organised paper that spilled left under the weight. That small round dinner table was back, already set with silverware and covered plates. There was a bucket with a clear crystal carafe chilling, and the fire was small and homey, shielded with a wire screen. 'What's on the menu this time?' Duo asked.

'Please sit.' Khushrenada didn't even so much as look at the table, but it was clear he expected to be obeyed in this, too. Duo cleared his throat, and decided to just play along. If he kept testing the limits, he'd eventually find one, and there was no need to do it before he'd been fed. He'd be too late for the mess if he got himself kicked out now.

So he sat. He shucked the fancy gold ring and flicked out the ornate fold of the serviette, laying it out on his lap with a flourish. With a tiny upturn of thin lips, Khushrenada mimicked him.

'No butler tonight?'

'Nothing so formal.' The plate covers had a little hole in the top. Khushrenada hooked it with a thumb and set it aside. Duo followed his lead. He was relieved and suspicious to find a very different meal than what he'd been served last time. Cutlets of potato and wild mushrooms in a thick port gravy, broad beans and cauliflower in mint. No meat, no shellfish. Water in the glasses, and, when Khushrenada poured it for him, a few sips of a vodka that smelled and tasted extremely expensive. 'The chef is a cousin of mine,' Khushrenada said. 'A traditional menu tonight from our town.'

'Perekop,' Duo said. He scrubbed his palms over the napkin. No nerves. Or at least don't show them. 'Read your dossier. It went the rounds in the outer circles of the Rebellion. Your grandfather was mayor there for sixteen years.'

'An upstanding fellow. He would have been highly disappointed, had he lived to see me disown him.' Khushrenada made short work of dicing up the cutlets into bite-sized pieces, efficient slices with his fork and knife. 'Of course, I'm sure he was highly disappointed to be thrown off the roof of the trainyard, but we all court our own disasters. Mother didn't approve of his fiscal infidelities.'

It must have been meant to provoke a reaction. All Duo felt was mystified. 'The food looks nice enough,' he said shortly. 'Thanks.'

'I'm glad you approve.' Dryly spoken, as Khushrenada ate. Duo finally joined in, and Khushrenada nodded to himself. 'So often one must hurry through the day. I insist on a proper supper whenever possible. A period to reflect, to slow down. To enjoy good food and remember the finer things.'

It was good. Rich, flavours he hadn't tasted at the mess in-- ever. But simple, straightforward food. He may not have seen it arrive on the plate, as he would have liked, but he could taste it hadn't been messed with. He caught himself savouring it, and forced himself to swallow quickly. He wet his lips with the water. 'You transferred Wong to Tunisia.'

'I did,' Khushrenada said.

'Not a great placement for him.'

'A dry and dusty place.'

He didn't know what to make of that. 'I told you he'd fuck it up.'

Khushrenada rested his silverware at a precise angle on his plate, raised the little vodka glass. 'Za vashee zda-ró-vye.'

Duo touched his own glass. It was cold, a little damp against his fingertips. 'My Russian is shitty.'

'To our meeting.'

Yeah. That was about all that could be said, wasn't it. He laughed; he couldn't help it. He picked up his own glass and inclined it. 'Here's mud in your eye.' He even sipped first, willing to be amused at that kind of honesty. Just a sip, only that, but why the hell not. He wasn't going to be shot on the way out the door, even if he didn't had a single fucking clue what else would happen.

For his part, Khushrenada's smile widened into something sly enough to be called a grin. For a second. He toasted Duo, and sat back in his chair, then, the glass balanced on his belly. When he drank, it was slow swallows, considering the flavour, enjoying it. Never taking his eyes off Duo's.

'You might reconsider the alcohol when you're in an adversarial situation.'

'Russians are rarely of the opinion that alcohol detracts from personal readiness.'

'That's because they're all alcoholics.'

Khushrenada smiled at that. A generous response to a bad joke. 'It's very good vodka,' he said. 'When one is served such a fine drink, one devotes one's senses to it. Sight.' He tilted the glass into the firelight, but he didn't look at it. He didn't look away from Duo. 'The clarity. The texture. The luminescence. This particular batch has a slight blue tint, yes. Scent.' He circled the glass beneath his nose. 'Grain. Sweet. Never aggressive or medicinal. Taste, only when one has satisfied oneself of the quality.' He drank, emptying the glass. 'Soft,' he said, overturning the glass on the white linen tablecloth. 'Not hard. Creamy, not watery. No burn. No bitterness.'

'I'm not vodka. I can be bitter as much as I want.' Duo poked at a spear of cauliflower on his plate, overturning it. 'I am luminescent, though.' He put on his best grin. 'I like getting high as much as anyone. I'm just carefuler when and where.'

Khushrenada nodded thoughtfully at that. 'The barracks are a secure venue, then?'

'Not really, but the risks are less profound. So. Who are we setting up next? Hibiscus is still out there.'

No shame, no shrugs, just a nod to acknowledge that Duo had seen the ploy for what it was. He was, after all, an accomplished assassin. Not a man with a deep respect for life. Not a man who thought too much of destroying careers, when he didn't even blink at eliminating a plane full of his superior officers. 'Do any targets suggest themselves?' he asked only.

'Am I picking personal favourites or incompetents?'

'You have an opportunity,' Khushrenada said. 'Better men than you have taken such an invitation to avenge personal wrongs.'

Zechs. Duo thought about drinking the vodka, then. Thought about Zechs telling him he'd never figure out how to please this man, and thought all on his own that he really didn't want to know, didn't care why he'd been picked for this. 'If I want to get even with someone, I stick a shiv in his back.'

'Then you've not been very angry this past year.' He took Duo's glass, as if he knew Duo was contemplating it. He drank the remains in a single shot. 'Perhaps you have come to enjoy your time in solitary confinement.'

'Plenty of time to think there.' He wiped his hands on his napkin again. Scrunched it tight between his fists. 'Have you ever?'

'Spent time in solitary?'

'Yeah.'

Just a man. A nice enough looking man, not the tallest, not the strongest, not even the smartest, even if he thought he was. A survivor, though. Maybe that was why he'd picked Duo. They had that in common, and it was the one thing he could read in Khushrenada's face, just now.

Khushrenada overturned Duo's glass beside his own, forefinger stroking down the side and stopping at the tablecloth. 'I have, yes. Many, many hours over many years.'

'Only hours at a time?'

'No. But you know this. You've read my dossier.' He inhaled, exhaled. 'Have you ever played chess? The best players of chess have already played the entire game in their heads before they move a single piece. That is what I did with my time.'

'Who'd you play against?' Zechs? He'd seen a chess set in Zechs' rooms. It was the only thing that had dust on it, the staff not allowed to clean it.

'The Sphere,' Khushrenada said.

'Hell of a team.' He was impressed. He didn't want to be. 'Who won?'

Khushrenada spread his hands. He didn't say it. The place that had once been his prison, now the seat of his power. Luxembourg, Europe, the whole of Romafeller's oligarchy under his thumb. No-one left to stop him.

Duo rolled his eyes. 'You got your ass kicked.'

'I lost exactly as much as I was willing to lose. No war is fought without casulaties.'

That was it. That was the end of his patience. He'd lasted longer than he expected, playing along with this insanity, and that was the bloody end of it. Khushrenada wanted a war, he'd get one.

He put his elbows on the edge of the table, leant forward. 'You assume the game has been completed and the pieces put away.'

'The game is never completed.' His most excellent Field Marshal Khushrenada took the change in tone, though, with eyes ever so slightly narrowed, wary. Rightly so. But quick to take the offence, a cautious feeler to see how far Duo would go. 'Are your compatriots settled well? Mr Winner, Mr Barton.'

Duo picked up a limp stalk of cauliflower and mashed it slowly between pointer and thumb. 'I don't talk to them.'

'No?'

'Why would I?'

'No bonds of loyalty?'

He flicked a bit of white to the pristine tablecloth. 'If you and Une and Zechs had lost the war. And you were all pressed into a military organization where your every move was observed. Would you keep in touch?'

'Oh, I think I would. And I think, if I were asked, I would baldly deny it.'

'I have nothing to say to them worth playing that game.'

'Mr Yuy, then.'

'What about him?'

Khushrenada's eyes followed his fingers as he wiped them on the tablecloth. 'Surely you're aware of his movements.'

'Same as you or anyone else, yeah. He works under Zechs.' He kept his casual tone, but the double meaning wasn't lost on either of them. Duo smiled. 'He's the poster child for the new regime.'

'Oh yes.' Khushrenada met his smile with one equally bland. 'He performs exactly as demanded, I understand.'

'Do you think I'd report on them because you fed me a couple of nice meals and some decent liquor?'

'If you had, you'd not have been invited back. Loyalty-- in whatever form-- is a quality I prize above all others.'

'You don't have the time for casual conversation. So why invite me?' He forestalled an answer by putting his hand over the knife. Not sharp, not with a meal of vegetables on their plates, but it conveyed exactly what he meant it to. 'I'm not Heero. I don't play nice because I'm told to.'

'I do enjoy a challenge.' The fun was over. The older man was nothing now but a few extra years of cold-blooded and gruelling decisions, and he was making another one now, unmoved by Duo's blatant threat. 'To cultivate you,' he said, unadorned.

The knife was cool, silver too soft for an edge. Duo dug the tip under his thumbnail, extracting a line of dirt that had been stubbornly refusing scrubbing. 'I'm not a tomato.'

'A tomato takes only a single season,' Khushrenada murmured wryly.

'I don't think I like the idea.'

'You may certainly decline. But I would be very surprised if you did. I had a better opinion of your intelligence.'

'Don't get me wrong,' Duo shrugged. 'I'll work for you. I'd rather not let my attitude get me placed in Tunisia. But I don't have to give a shit about any of you personally.' He examined his nail, and started on the next. 'And I don't have to let you mould me into a replacement for Merquise. Or Chang.'

It was his first solid hit. And it was a good one, with an interesting reveal. Khushrenada did exactly what Duo would have done in his place. He smiled, eyes cold and grim and very, very dangerous.

'Oopsie,' Duo said quietly. 'Touched a nerve.'

It was a long minute, then, in silence. The charred log in the fire popped, but the flames were low and smoking out. A clock somewhere ticked seconds by. The air flow from the vent was a low breeze humming over the furniture. Khushrenada breathed. Duo didn't, waiting.

Khushrenada straightened. He lifted the carafe from the bucket, wiping melting ice away with his napkin. He overturned their glasses and poured another round of vodka, filling the glasses to the brim. He drank his straight away, a single smooth shot, and placed the other glass exactly halfway between he and Duo. He said, 'Let me put this plainly. I offer you an opportunity you will never have again. I don't accept half-way commitments. You could rise to prominence in Preventers. Or you could be more ambitious still. Winning a war is easy. Winning a peace is harder, and it takes time, cunning, and patience. If you have that, you have the opportunity to influence my direction. If you don't, walk out that door. You can go back to a cozy, unimportant life in service to sad, small men.'

'I'm not you. I'm not Zechs, I'm not even Heero. I don't want your peace. That doesn't mean I'm not capable.'

'You're sloppy. You're callow, and undisciplined, and you've allowed yourself to be come embittered and directionless. You'll never be more than merely “capable” if you aren't pushed to rise above yourself.'

That blunt assessment of his character was ridiculous, and probably true, and he didn't care. 'And you think buffing a pretty patina on is the key?'

'A leader is more than a smart man. You know you can lead. I know you can lead. But other men must follow you.'

'Nothing I do will make Oz regulars trust me.'

'They've trusted outsiders before. Even petty noblemen aren't banished to Siberia for the fresh air. It will take time. Years, perhaps. But you can win them. Do you believe in God?'

'What?' The sudden swing threw him. He fumbled the recovery, hesitating. 'No. I-- no.'

'An atheist?'

'Not that either. Why? You?'

'Oh, I very much believe in God.'

'Because you like being a devil or you're deluded enough to believe you're an angel?'

Khushrenada rode over his jab implacably. 'What I do not believe is that God pays any attention at all to our hapless little planet and our satellites. He turned his back on us long, long ago. We make of this short and brutal life He gave us what we will, but the result will always be the same: no heaven, no hell. Only brief, fragile life.'

'Briefer for some than others. Wufei was fifteen.'

'And if he were alive he would be in that chair, not you. But the only consequences we face are the ones we make for ourselves. Drink.'

That was not an offer. It was a command. Duo picked up the glass. His hand shook, just a tiny lone tremor, sloshing the chilled alcohol. He shot it. It didn't burn. It made an icy trail down his throat, his chest.

'Don't think me uninterested in legacy. Human legacy is all there is.' Khushrenada shoved his chair back and left the table, walking straight-backed to his desk. 'Be a part of it or walk out that door.'

He chose. He wouldn't appreciate the irony til later.  



	9. Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Left,' Sogran directed. 'Tilt your head thus. Yes.' The agent with the comb fussed with Quatre's hair, brushing it in a careful swoop across Quatre's forehead, til the tips just brushed his right eye. He straightened the high collar of Quatre's coat, where it framed his jaw. Moved Quatre's hand to sit open-palmed on his knee, fingers cupping lightly. Quatre swallowed, dry-mouthed with nerves. He wanted for water, but knew better than to ask.

At last Sogran was satisfied. The woman with the camera murmured to him, too softly to be overheard. Sogran nodded his assent.

'Do you need a card?' he asked Quatre.

He shook his head. His groomer immediately returned with the comb, and Quatre took care to sit still then.

'The microphone is live in three.' The red light on the woman's camera switched to green. She held up fingers for him to see, counting it down. Two. One. She pointed to him.

He inhaled, rather late, too much air. 'My name is-- Quatre Raberba Winner,' he said, and had to clear his throat. Sogran shook his head, and he began again. 'My name is Quatre Raberba Winner. My father was Kadar Raberba Winner. My father was murdered by Oz soldiers in the war, shot down for resisting the seizure of L4's resource satellites.'

The rote recital of carefully chosen words dropped into silence. A breath of air shivered the grey screen behind him, and his sweating palms on the wool of his trousers made just the faintest rustle, but there was no sound other than his heartbeat, and his voice.

'I was the Pilot of Gundam Sandrock,' he said. 'I was called Pilot Oh-Four.'

 

**

 

It began with the food riot.

South Sudan along the White Nile had been a struggling region even before the war. Displaced thousands fled from it, and those who could not leave starved, and, in starving, struck out in desperation. The attack on the water purification plants responsible for exporting the Nile's most precious resource had come five days before Libra, and troops hadn't pacified the fighting til nine days after. Since then, the refugee camps had been heavily guarded, soldiers had openly controlled the streets, and any sign of violence was met with the unrelenting march of Tragos and Aries. When Field Marshal Khushrenada called an official end to military occupation, Preventers moved in for the exact same job.

The food riot started six hours after Preventers Mobile Unit 32X radioed to follow up on a lost shipment.

The agent whose job was tracking shipments lost the paperwork in a power surge and never accurately counted it after the servers were restored. He was twenty-two and three days old when he was clubbed to death behind his station post. The commander in charge of the post was visiting Khartoum to meet with local business leaders and was stranded across the river, unable to reach her men. Four civilians, all local nationals, who worked for Preventers as, respectively, a cook, a custodian, and two nurses, were taken from the base by the mob and never seen again. The rest of Mobile Unit 32X rallied, defended the base, contained the riot, and pushed two hundred malnourished and desperate people into the river. Ninety-seven, including twenty children, drowned. The rest surrendered within the hour.

Quatre stroked Trowa's hair. Their hidden spot beneath the bleachers at the gym would only stay hidden til the end of the yoga class, but for now they had a few moments unnoticed and unbothered. Trowa lay with his head in Quatre's lap, holding loosely to Quatre's ankle. His long fingers picked at the laces of Quatre's boot.

'They think a lot of them were swept down-river,' Trowa mumbled.

'Trowa.' Quatre bent over him, to hold him tightly. 'You weren't at fault.'

'I fired.'

'Rubber bullets.'

'I fired, Quat.' Trowa pushed him away, sitting up. Quatre checked to be sure no-one on the floor beyond had spied the movement, and shifted to put his shoulder to a support post. 'I don't want to talk about it any more,' Trowa said.

'Then don't.' He tugged. Trowa reluctantly took a kiss, his eyes sliding away before drooping closed. Quatre caressed his cheek, aching for him.

The instructor called a halt and the class began to pack up, rolling up the matts and dispersing. Trowa broke away first, though they were both moving by instinct, crawling out of their nest toward the supply cage at the far end. Brushing dust from their knees, they crept out, slipped into the hallway behind the men's locker, and out the back exit into the daylight outside.

'I'm on duty after supper,' Quatre said, as they walked up the road toward the mess hall.

'You're not,' Trowa corrected sharply.

'They've switched around some of the shifts.'

'Who made the rota?'

'Zabrinski. It's all right. I don't think it was aimed at me. Us.'

Trowa shook his head, but didn't press it. His steps slowed, approaching the mess, but then he steeled himself. Quatre stifled a sigh. We don't have to, he thought, but didn't say it. It was untrue, and anyway Trowa was determined he should pretend everything was as it always was. So in they went. It was early in the meal-hour, and the queue wasn't long yet. Trowa led, Quatre followed. He spotted it first-- one of the cooks who didn't like them was on duty, and as one they detoured away from the buffet. A dinner of toast and rolls from the open bread baskets, water from the public fountains, and, atop that unsatisfying meal, frozen yoghurt from the machine used mostly by the freshman recruits.

'I have a couple of almond bars stashed in my bunk,' Quatre offered, as they hurried to get their usual table in back. 'We'll have time to pick them up before my shift begins.'

'Where are you on duty?'

'In the CommSec. It's a three-week Name Check rotation.'

'That's new.' Trowa frowned over his toast, picking at the edges and eating the crusts first. 'I wouldn't have thought they'd trust us with live intell.'

'We're integrating.'

He said it absently. Trowa followed his gaze. The only agreement he made was a soft snort. Duo Maxwell was just coming in the far doors. He risked the food, Quatre noted, though the cooks served him with open contempt, and he was jostled in the queue, a wave of snickers following his stumble.

'Don't be sorry for him.' Trowa reached past him for the condiments tray, yanking them near to sniff the mustard pot. 'He chose.'

'He can't have done,' Quatre said. 'He may make the best of it, but he didn't ask for this.'

'You're too soft.' Still. That hung between them, unsaid, with Trowa's grim worry behind it. Trowa stood abruptly. 'I'll get a coffee. Since you're on duty tonight. With cream.'

'I don't like it with cream,' he muttered.

'You need the calories.' Trowa didn't allow him to protest. He was walking away before he finished speaking.

Duo had found a seat at a table near the other end of the hall. When he sat, the group of agents already at the table collected their trays and left. Quatre inhaled slowly, carefully, and kept his eyes on his plate of crusts.

 

**

 

He touched his pointer to the newspaper bearing the date, awkwardly hugging it to his chest to keep it in frame. 'I am speaking to you on Twelve November AC 198. I am speaking to you today to issue a call.'

This was the hardest part. His empty stomach clenched, his hands were sweating. He was dooming himself with a word, but it had to be done. Just beyond the camera, Sogran watched, grave, his dark eyes unblinking.

'I am Hibiscus,' Quatre said, his voice steady only because he was too worn for anything else. 'I call you to join my resistance.'

 

**

 

It began with the food riot in South Sudan. But it didn't stop there.

Jordan had fallen in the war around and dragged its neighbours Lebannon and Syria with it. Oz troops had held the Saudi Arabian border and secured the West Bank via a hard-line offense with the Pisces mecha designed for both amphibious and ground assault; they had occupied the territory and declared it a no-go zone, enforcing it with mass evacuation of the hapless human inhabitants, driving them out with the Tragos and fielding the Virgo as soon as it was in mass production. A proto-rebellion in Egypt wisely fell quiet after the pacification of its surrounding states, and Romafeller allies were able to take the election with a modest jump in the polls.

The appearance of mobile suits unaffiliated with Romafeller's engineers marked the springboard of the new resistance in that region. Initial intelligence on the heavy assault units considered them an alteration of the Serpent design, mothballed after the Virgo became the preferred all-terrain unit. It carried breachers and wide-engagement combat weapons like Gattling guns, beam cannons, IED launchers. The hoverjet suggested it was built for the desert terrain of the Mid East, able to skim the surface but not capable of space flight as the Virgo was. It was two months after Libra that one was finally captured, though the pilot attempted to self-destruct and succeeded in blowing out all usable data and most of the cockpit and torso. Forensic examination concluded that the suit had not, in fact, been developed along the same plans as the Serpent; it was, moreover, constructed of an inferior titanium alloy drawn from an unknown refinery. It was designated Enemy Combatant MS D-23X1, but soon the moniker 'Ceratops' caught on, referring to the suit's thick trunks and heavy forward frill of armour.

Counter-tactics were still being debated when the newly minted Preventers arrived in the West Bank to construct a base. It was intended to quarter and arm nine full cohorts, making it the largest planned garrison on Earth. If the majority of those who would be stationed there were seasoned and blooded troops before they transitioned to Preventers, one could only call it justified. The region was violent and the Resistance was known to hide in the wild tracts just beyond the edges of civilisation.

When two dozen Ceratops came streaking out of the sandstorm in December and fell upon the half-built barracks, they were not met by underarmed and unexperienced peacekeepers. The battle was long, and despite the numbers Preventers held their own.

Til the Manguanac Corps joined the fight, striking from the flank. Forty suits with the stylised armour of the dormant Gundam Suits, fighting in concert, deadly and determined. It was a rout.

Zechs Merquise returned furious and raving, humiliated by a rare defeat. He was closeted for two full days with the Field Marshal, and left straight away from their meeting, not even stopping back at his own quarters. He took Heero Yuy with him. The Tallgeese Gundam was moved to the new base, displayed prominently at combat ready. That week, the Field Marshal, in one of his last acts as the Secretary General of the Earth Sphere United Nation, lifted the ban on mobile technology, the better to contain it through legal tracking and containing the refineries.

Preventers rebuilt, brought in the cohorts even before the housing was finished, encamped in tents amid raised timber shells, and waited for the next.

 

**

 

'Quatre!' Ralph's hiss pulled him off the path to the shade of the juniper trees lining the walk. Both checked for prying eyes; Ralph hid him from the only open vantage point by putting his own back to it.

'You heard about the fight?'

'What fight?'

'It's Trowa.' When Quatre would have gone dashing off, Ralph held him back. 'Listen for a bloody minute before you hare away. I don't think it was about the Gundam stuff, I think he was just caught up in some of the usual shit about factions, but there was a brawl--'

'A brawl!'

'They were calling for witnesses and someone named Trowa as an instigator. He's in the glasshouse with two others. They're holding him for ten days solitary.'

Quatre sucked in a breath, mind racing. 'Which commander?' he asked finally.

'Miles Franklin.'

His stomach sank. Franklin was original Specials, an officer in long standing who had never made a secret of the fact that he found the current mix of political factions under Khushrenada's roof distasteful. 'Ten days is-- excessive,' he said. 'For a bit of fighting. It has to go to review if it's more than five-- someone will-- won't they?'

'Don't count on it.' Ralph mussed his dark hair, scraped it back along his temple. 'Listen. I've an idea, but you won't like it.'

'Anything.' Quatre gripped his arm. 'You have someone you could go to? A favour, maybe?'

'I don't. But you do.' Ralph chewed his lip. 'Major Sogran.'

'What?' Quatre let go in surprise. He had nowhere back to go, fragrant juniper branches scraping his cheek and making him shiver. 'He... he wouldn't. He has no reason.'

'Not in the ordinary way. I don't think he'd do it to help you. But he'd do it if you had a way of helping him. You'd owe him, and I think he's the sort to like that.' Ralph shook his head. 'I'm not saying it's pleasant. You might not like the price. It's only ten days, Quatre, Trowa can make it.'

Quatre shredded needles from a twig. Ten days. It was too punitive not to be a deliberate provocation, too disproportionate not to be a personal vendetta. They'd been doing so well keeping out of trouble, it had been bound to snap, but this--

'Can't talk you out of it, I suppose,' Ralph murmured.

'He would do anything for me.' Quatre checked his watch. 'I don't-- I don't even know where Sogran's office is.'

'On base. But he's off duty by now. Look, I'll cover for you at CommSec. As long as there's a body in the seat with your login no-one should know.' Ralph exchanged him a scrap of paper with the suite number at the officer's barracks building, and Quatre hurriedly scratched out his password for the Name Check portal. 'He'll ask how you know about it. Don't tell him you've got any support, or he'll target--'

'I won't. You have my word.'

'I don't need your word.' Ralph quirked a subdued smile at him. 'I know you're a good man and a dab hand at handling yourself, whatever Trowa thinks.'

That struck him as odd, but there was no time to pursue it. As it was Trowa would likely spend the night and most of the next day in solitary confinement, even if Sogran put in the order immediately. And if Sogran wasn't convinced of the urgency, it would be longer still.

'Hey.' Ralph held him back when he would have left. 'I was holding this for you, you know. Before I heard about Barton.' He pressed a pair of chocolate bars on Quatre. 'You're lookin' thin, mate. I worry.'

 

**

 

'We have had victories,' Quatre said. 'We have shown only a fraction of our strength and we have taken our vengeance in blood. But we are small in number. We must hide in the shadow until we have all our allies about us. We need the citizenry to back our cause. So I call on you. Men and women who would be free, you must rise up and take your freedom. Men and women who would know true peace, not the oppressive hand of a dictator, you must rise up and create it for yourselves. Men and women who remember what it is to fight, we need you. I need you. I cannot do it alone.'

He drew a breath that trembled. Closed his eyes, trying in vain to find his centre. The silence was overwhelming.

'We need the Gundams,' he said. 'And I know where mine is. When we have such a weapon in our possession, brothers and sisters, we will be unbeatable.'

 

**

 

'I need-- would request-- a moment of your time,' Quatre managed tightly. 'Please, Major.'

Sogran stared down at him from the door. That he was startled by Quatre's presence was obvious from the tight flat turn of his mouth, the hard glare of dark eyes. Which lifted, then, flicking to the agent who'd only escorted Quatre to the third storey suite in expectation of the pleasure of seeing Quatre flayed for his daring.

'Leave us,' Sogran said shortly. He stood back, opening the door wide. 'Agent Winner.'

It was only a very normal room, a little overly warm with the fireplace roaring so high. There was a couch and chaise, a lamp beside a leather chair and ottoman, a table strewn with books. A half-eaten meal had been pushed to one side. Quatre's mouth watered, on seeing it; he'd missed his own dinner hour. Ralph's chocolate bars would do for later, when he had time.

Sogran himself was no less intimidating in his nightwear, a long shirt open at the throat, a velvet robe corded at the waist. He sat in the chair, with no indication that Quatre should join him. Stuck at the door with nerves, Quatre dug his nails into his palms, eyes burning dully as he glared a hole in the carpet.

'Speak,' Sogran said.

A yip answered him. A dog. A little terrier, curled in a plush blanket by the fire. Quatre had taken it for a pile of laundry, perhaps. Sogran glanced aside, distracted, and sighed.

'Speak, Winner,' he amended.

Quatre's voice emerged, mouse-like, and he swallowed to try again with more strength. 'There's been an incident, sir. And I-- I need help.'

'And?' Sogran waved a hand at him. 'None of this silliness. Tell me outright.'

'A brawl, sir. And Trowa Barton is in solitary. Ten days.'

'Ah. Your lover.' Sogran shrugged indifferently. 'I have no interest in him. A cold fish, by all accounts.'

'I suppose you would know.' Sogran's white eybrows climbed, and Quatre knew he'd gone too far. No. Not far enough. Sogran had pushed him from the start, and he'd only had results with the man when he'd fought back. His father had been the same. 'I'm not here to ask you to care. I'm here to ask you to rescind the order.'

Sogran considered him, tapping one slippered toe against the ottoman. The terrier left its bed and padded across the carpet, standing on its hind legs to Sogran's chair. Absently Sogran stroked its pointed ears. 'Who gave it?' he questioned. 'The order.

'Commander Franklin, sir.'

'His door is only two down. You could ask him for this very important help.'

'He gave the order out of spite. If you don't care for me and don't care for Trowa, you'll help because it's right.'

'You think I have any interest in what's “right”?'

'If not for that, I'm sure you can think of some reason.'

Sogran's head tilted. His fingers on the dog's small head stilled. It wagged its stumpy tail, but grew tired of waiting on a reaction, and came to sniff at Quatre's boots. It stood on Quatre's leg, sniffing at his dangling hands, and lost interest when Quatre didn't respond to its whined entreaties.

'You said it was solitary,' Sogran said finally.

'Yes, sir. Ten days.'

'And? Surely you've endured longer. You count him weaker than yourself? You were held on Lunar Base for fourteen.'

That Sogran knew so much about him could not come as a surprise. But it should change his tactics. Quatre bit his tongue, struggling with scattered thoughts, cowed by that cold gaze. 'He won't eat,' he said, unsure it was the right way to go. 'You may not-- be aware-- the food here. He won't be able to trust the food, so he won't be able to eat.'

'If he starves himself deliberately, medical intervention will be supplied. And I am still not needed for that.'

'It would be unnecessary if I were allowed to bring him food.'

Sogran's laugh was surprise and contempt in equal measure. 'Special privileges for Gundam Pilots because they don't find the food to their liking? I think not.'

'Razors. Ground glass. Spit and excrement and worse.' He ran out of voice again. 'I'm asking. If for no other reason than that, please. Help me to help him. He would do anything for me, and I can't do less for him.'

Sogran stood. Quatre stared over his shoulder, trying not to flinch, unsure at what he felt in the air-- threat, certainly, but not violence, not that kind of danger. Sogran caged him in at the door, touched his hair.

'If I do this, all of Preventers will know I did it for you. Should I be at your beck and call?'

'They'll think the obvious.' He couldn't breathe, the man's bulk so near. It was all he could do to lift his hands. He fumbled with his belt, numb fingers clumsy on the buckle, on the button below.

'Stop.' Sogran gripped him hard enough by the neck to sting, shaking him. 'Stop, you idiot child.' He shoved Quatre back into the door, whirling away. Shaking, Quatre watched him go, storming to the hearth. The terrier growled, alarmed by the shout, and skittered away when Sogran shoved it gone with a foot.

'Then what?' Quatre demanded hoarsely. 'What do you want from me if not that? My hair, my marks, singling me out-- you've been leading to something. What?'

Sogran pulled a book from the mantel. From within its pages he drew a small folder, no larger than a hand. He turned and extended it. Quatre swallowed, throat sore from the pressure of Sogran's hand there. Each step toward the man felt a thousand miles long. He took the folder. It was a cardboard picture holder, the kind supplied by film developers. The picture inside, framed by a graceful oval of slate blue, was a boy.

'My son,' Sogran rasped. 'You resemble him a little too much for comfort, this particular moment.'

Blond. A round face, not unlike Quatre's, different than the man who stood glaring death at the flames in the hearth. A small scar by the mouth, nearly to the chin. The same dark eyes as his father. Quatre wet his lips. 'If... if not this, then what do you want. Why me.'

'Because there should be more than this!' Sogran stabbed at the burning logs with the poker, then flung it at the crate, clattering all the tools down in a clang of iron. Quatre flinched, and the dog ran away through the open door to the bedroom. 'Because between your cause and mine we lost the war, Winner. But not the will to fight.'

It seemed, then, as if he had known this was coming, from the first time Sogran had approached him in the barbershop. The queasy swirl of fear and shame that had propelled him through the door to this confrontation was a manufacture of the man before him, a man who-- what? 'You talk of Resistance,' Quatre said.

'I talk of righting the balance.' Sogran rubbed his face, his jaw, placed his fist on the mantel. 'And you. The most urgent problem in your wretched little life here is that your lover may not eat for a few days? Men and women you inspired to rise up are out there alone, fighting the war you abandoned.'

'Why agree to join cause with the Field Marshal then?' Quatre retorted. 'You know I had no choice. None of us! But you did. You're here for what purpose? Revenge? There is no more war. There is no more Rebellion. Just-- he won. It's his world, now.'

'Only if we let him have it.'

 

**

 

'What will you do with the tape?' Quatre asked, as the woman packed it away, disguised within a fine caddy of tea. With a murmured word to Sogran, she was gone, the other agent with her. They locked the basement door after them, and all was silent but for the drip, drip of moisture in some dark corner.

Sogran removed the sheet from the wall and tossed it over a pile of chairs. Quatre's stool returned to the stack of similar furniture along the far wall. Sogran dusted his gloves, checking that all was set to rights. Of the footprints on the floor, they could do nothing, but their boots were all standard-issue and no distinctive prints could be got from the exercise.

Sogran never answered his question, so Quatre asked the one more important to him. 'Trowa,' he said.

'Yes, you have your permission.' Sogran snorted as he lifted his uniform jacket from the peg on the bare drywall, buttoning himself into it briskly. 'You understand I can't reduce the term of his confinement. That would draw too much attention to our association.'

'I understand.' The grey coat Quatre had worn for the video went back to its owner; Sogran brushed his sleek hair back and tilted the collar up to his stern jaw. Sogran might have been waiting on it, but Quatre didn't thank him. He'd more than paid for his favour.

Sogran climbed the stairs first, leaning an ear against the door at the top of the well to check for passerby. He inserted his key and checked again.

Behind him, Quatre said, 'Your son. Where did he die?'

Sogran straightened and looked back. 'What?'

'He's dead, isn't he. Your son. He fought in the war?'

Not for the first time Quatre wished he could read the black eyes relentlessly boring into his. 'Bingulia,' he said, guttural as granite. 'In D Area.'

'That's a satellite off Lagrange 4.'

'Yes.'

Quatre didn't know what to make of that. Not yet. So he simply took the information and repeated it to himself. Bingulia. 'What was his name?'

'Geir,' Sogran whispered.

Geir at Bingulia. Geir at Bingulia, L4, because... because someone named Quatre Winner from L4 had built a Gundam and inspired others to follow. Yes.

'Good night,' Quatre said, and opened the door and left.

 

**

 

Trowa lunged for the food slot when Quatre called his name. His hands reached through, grasping, knocking over the juicebox in his haste. Quatre knelt on the cold tile, bending to press his lips to Trowa's knuckles. Harsh gasps from the other side of the iron door strangled all reply. Quatre didn't force it. He just kissed Trowa's hands, stroking them, holding them to his cheeks.

'You have to go the full ten days,' he managed at last. 'But I can bring you your meals. I've arranged to be able to bring them all, so that's three times I can see you every day. Use it to mark the time. And you can trust the food, I swear. A friend of mine is getting it.' He opened his lips against Trowa's palm. 'You can do this.'

'You have an awful lot of friends suddenly.' He leant his forehead against the spot on the door where Trowra's hoarse voice emerged, wishing he could see. He closed eyes that stung, dry as bone. 'Quat, this is dangerous.'

'I wouldn't let you go mad in here alone. Ten days. It's horrid.'

'Quatre. You need to stop trying to protect me.'

He felt a tremor in his hands and willed it to stop, knowing Trowa would feel it. 'Eat your food,' he said. 'I've even got a chocolate bar for you. Haven't had chocolate in a long time.'

It started with the food riot. The battle of the West Bank was the first open engagement.

Then there was a bombing in Togo. In Germany a raid on a munitions factory, the loss reported much lower than was eventually confirmed. On L2 a protest through the Avenue, looters destroying shopfronts and clashing with police. By the time Preventers deployed it was a full-scale riot. Four were killed, hundreds arrested. In Laos they set fire to rice silos, the charred bodies of the guards only later found to have slit throats. In Somolia the roving gangs of displaced militants again began to roam the countryside, pillaging and raping. Preventers brought a troop of Virgos to restore order, and rained slaughter from the skies.

Unnoticed at first, buried in the threads of nascent internetwork forums, a call went out. Like a virus, it jumped from site to site, uploaded by new users every time it was erased from somewhere else. It began to be associated with a strange icon, a thumbnail gif always the same, no matter how many iterations it went through. A white flower with a blood-red fruit. In some languages it was called a _roselle_. But wherever it appeared, the Hibiscus was linked with war.


	10. Heero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

The snow started falling the night of Christmas Eve. There was a white dusting everywhere by Christmas morning, muted sunlight casting a soft blue glow over all it touched. There was an impromptu snowball fight on the quad behind the mess hall, watched over by senior officers who smiled and let it pass without punishment for the break in discipline. After all, Preventers were no longer soldiers, and it was good to know the Sphere was finally peaceful enough to allow them a moment of unalloyed rest and joy.

For Heero, watching the flakes drift past the window, it merely underlined the fundamental lesson of his life. Given long enough, nothing meant anything.

Heero swung his legs off the bed. Shrugged into his shirt, and stood to pull on his undershorts, snapping the elastic over the crescent-shaped scratch on his hipbone.

'Duo would have stayed.'

Heero didn't look back at him. Hauled up his trousers, the other hand swiping his hair, smoothing it from forelock to nape. 'You can always trade us off,' he said, soft and toneless.

Larget wet flakes, catching on the window pane, blotches of light. 'I don't prefer his company.'

'Then does it matter that he would have stayed?'

 

**

 

The adjutant manning the desk gave Heero a once-over as he passed, but let him through without comment. Heero swiped his keycard over the sensor, and entered Zechs' office without knocking.

Zechs was at the large oak desk beneath the chandelier, but was not attending any of the piled reports in the inbox nor the glowing computer screen. Music was playing. Mozart, Heero identified it, Symphony 40. The second movement. Zechs was in a mood.

Heero dumped his gear on the Turkish rug, spattering it with wet mud. He said, 'Why is Treize making Duo eat dinner with him?'

Zechs turned up cold eyes from the apparently involving project of balancing a dagger on the tip of his forefinger. It fell to the right, caught by quick reflex. 'Hello to you.'

Heero shucked his greatcoat, dropping the soaked and useless wool beside his pack. His scarf was no better, soggy through and through. He was warmer without it. 'Treize. He's making Duo eat dinner with him.'

'It's Field Marshal, even in private.' Zechs sheathed the dagger at his belt. 'He's probably bored.'

'Why Duo?'

'Honestly? Because Duo is not bright. Treize wonders if that's immutable.'

Heero was not known for being specially bright either, and that statement produced a deep frown. Deeper. The music irritated him, Zechs irritated him, and not knowing why he couldn't get a straight answer irritated him. 'Duo is very intelligent,' he said at last, made sullen by the faint sneer permanently stamped on Zechs' pale eyes.

Zechs only snorted his amusement. 'Oh, indeed.'

Heero turned his back on it. There was a bottle of wine open on the table before the couch, a cup abandoned half-drunk. He sipped, grimacing. One of them had appalling taste in wine, and he didn't know if it were Zechs or himself. He sprawled on Zechs' chaise lounge, kicking off his boots to air swollen feet. Dirt flaked from his hair when he brushed it out of his eyes. 'Is he doing with Duo what you did with Duo?' he challenged.

'Doubtful.' Zechs set his chin on his hand, watching him through narrowed gaze. 'Duo wouldn't let him make a move,' Zechs added then, with an odd note of reluctance Heero couldn't penetrate. 'Even if Treize wanted to, and I've seen no sign of it.'

He took that for honesty, and it relieved him. 'Do you have anything to eat?'

Zechs barked out a laugh. 'You see, that's what I love about you, Yuy. Everything is so clear.' He made a lazy wave at the sideboard. 'They served tea an hour ago. Help yourself.'

He'd made the point before that he didn't respond to sarcasm. If that meant anything other than what it sounded like, Heero determined to ignore it. There was a platter of untouched food, a pork pie and rolls of pickled herring, a plate of ploughman's cheese and pickle. Heero assembled a sandwich for one hand and took the pie in the other. He retreated to the couch to eat, licking something that tasted of both gravy and dirt dripping down his thumb.

Zechs rose from the desk as he ate. He poured a glass of sparkling water, setting carafe and goblet at Heero's knee on the low table by the couch. He plucked a bit of cheese slipping from Heero's sandwich. When Heero refused to look up, Zechs stole the entire sandwich, putting a retaliatory bite in the corner. 'Maxwell can fend for himself,' he said then.

'He shouldn't have to.' Heero lost chutney and ham in the retrieval, but took his sandwich back. He finished it in two big bites, managing a manful swallow with the aid of the water, and started on his pie.

'We all have to. It's the way of the world.'

Heero cast a pointed glare about the well-appointed office, the rich gold and crystal furnishings, the priceless rugs, even the silver ring on Zechs' finger, the signet of Sanq surrounded by diamonds. 'Is it,' he said.

Zechs' eyes went, if anything, even colder. 'Yes. It is.'

Heero tore the last bite of pie in half, biting through a chunk of meat. He drained the water, and, when Zechs poured for him again, the second glass as well. Momentarily sated, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, pulled a pillow behind his neck, and rested back.

Zechs picked up his wine, toying with the stem before he lifted it to his lips. It barely touched before he replaced it on the table. 'Where have you been?'

'Sinai.'

'Doing what?'

'Read Delta's report when it comes out.'

'I don't care for that answer much,' Zechs murmured, an edge of danger flattening his low voice.

'I didn't care for the assignment much.' He angled another pillow under his bad knee without opening his eyes. 'It's not my job to tell every agent to ask your permission first.'

'If that assignment had come from my office, I'd already know what you'd been doing. Nevermind. Go shower. You smell.'

'Later.' The light from the window bothered his eyes. There was a weather system coming; he had a headache eating at the back of his skull. 'Haven't slept in seventy hours.'

Zechs pushed at his legs, til Heero, annoyed, rolled away from him, hitching his collar up over his neck. 'In my quarters,' Zechs ordered him, 'in two hours. Answer me.'

'If it's an order, the only answer is yes.'

Zechs hesitated, then, a reveal that Heero noted and wondered at. The bigger man didn't move, didn't stalk away, didn't snap at him in anger, didn't even shove him again, all things that had happened a dozen times over in the past months. Just that hesitation, and so Heero hesitated as well, attuned to the wrongness of it.

He swallowed, and closed his eyes into the pillow. 'Two hours,' he agreed.

 

**

 

The nap was enough to recharge him. When he awoke, he was alone. He did shower, using the small ensuite at the back of Zechs' office. The cubicle never produced truly hot water, no matter how many service orders Zechs filed. The new block being built outside the city for the base would have entirely new plumbing, it was promised, but construction had failed to start before winter, and would now be stalled til spring.

His hair had dried excepting a persistent damp drip down his collar, by the time he stepped off the base tram in front of officer housing. As at the offices, he was allowed entrance by secretaries and staffers who had become used to his coming and going at will. Outwardly, he was just another agent, invisible in his uniform and unremarkable, except, perhaps, for his youth. That he came carrying his full pack and wearing dirty clothes garnered a glance or two, before they remembered not to look too closely.

The guard outside the General's door let him in. The foyer was empty, dark. The bedroom light was on. Heero deposited his pack, propping it against the chair rail. He followed the soft glow along the carpet, turned the corner, and pushed the door wide.

Zechs was already in bed. Heero blew out a breath of air through his nose, tongue pressed to his teeth. Nude, the sheet gathered at his waist. There was a book on the bed, in the space beside the man, but it was unopened, and the bedside lamp was off.

Without speaking, Heero stripped. He left his shirt in a crumple, stepped out of his trousers. When he stood barefoot in his underwear, he crossed the bedroom to the bay window. He drew the curtains. 'I've told you not to trust there's no-one watching,' he said, checking between the inch of space left by a crooked rod. Zechs could have had quarters in town proper, as Treize-- the Field Marshal-- and a few others did, but his show of solidarity with his soldiers-turned-Preventers required some sacrifice. Privacy. It was near dusk, with a haze over the horizon, heavy with the promise of that weather arriving. He didn't see anyone looking from the street below, no windows from nearby buildings obviously open to theirs, but one day there would be.

'I don't care if they are,' Zechs said.

He couldn't close the curtains. He knew from experience. He left them gapping, and turned to sit on the bench below the window. A velvet cushion crushed beneath his bare legs. He dropped his elbows to his thighs, shoulders loose, head down. He wasn't tired, not now, but he wasn't ready for the bed, wasn't ready for what Zechs needed out of him, always needed out of him.

Wasn't ready for the words that left his mouth, hadn't known he'd say them. 'Duo went to Treize's private quarters.'

Zechs cocked his head. Drew up a knee, a gesture that looked protective til he realised, and stiffly settled again. 'And?'

'You said he wasn't doing that.'

'No, I said Treize wasn't fucking him.' A bleached lock fell from Zechs' muscled shoulder across his chest. 'Why does this concern you?'

Heero frowned over that, puzzling out the hidden meaning. 'It doesn't concern me. That does not mean I'm not concerned.'

'Why are you concerned then?' Zechs lifted the book and put it aside. 'Come to bed.'

Heero closed his eyes. Only for a moment. He stood, peeled off his pants, and went.

Zechs made no room for him. Only shifted the sheet, pushing it down. Heero sat on the edge, lay back. Zechs' hand, a large hand, capable hand, long fingers with no decoration but for that signet, skimmed slowly, lightly, down his chest, his belly, and stopped just short of his groin. Quietly Zechs said, 'On your stomach, please.'

He obeyed. The bed was cool, the mattress soft, the pillow sham that he pulled under his cheek silky. It enabled him to close his eyes. This was all Zechs had ever asked of him, to be a body in a bed. He didn't think about it; there was no point in thinking about it, no thinking required for this act, and so it went, every time. Above him, Zechs was slow, building to it. Their only contact was his fingertips, the play of tactile textures and exploration that wasn't quite a caress. The jut of his shoulders, the small of his back, cupping his rear. The scar on the back of his thigh, every time, traced from tip to tip.

'Are you still fucking him?'

'Who.'

'Duo.'

Bidden to it, he thought of Duo, falling out of the car that day last month, with Zechs behind him, mouths red from kissing, Duo's blush of arousal and shame. He envied Duo that capacity to feel. The desire to. He had none.

'I was never fucking Duo,' he said, as Zechs slipped slicked fingers into him.

'Liar.'

'I don't have lie.'

The exhale at his shoulder was sigh and laughter in one. 'Everyone lies.'

Pressure against his prostate. A flash of heat up his nerves, tensing him. He twisted the tassel of the pillow sham in his fist. 'I'm busy tonight.'

A pause, maybe of curiosity, maybe jealousy. 'What's so important?'

'You don't usually care where I go.'

'I asked you a question. Several, in fact. You're evading me.'

'If I sleep in the barracks tonight I might hear more rumour about what's happening between Duo and Treize.'

'You sleep like the dead. You won't hear anything. And any rumor you'll hear will be fantasy.'

'I slept in your office. I'll be fine for a few days now.'

A moment of vacancy, awkwardly released, and then two fingers became three, a fourth close behind. 'You'll sleep here tonight.'

'If I go tonight I'm more likely to hear something.'

'Why haven't you asked him yourself?'

He didn't answer that. Zechs didn't press him. He shifted in the bed, the bottle of lubricant in his hand, a cold dribble of grease down the crease of Heero's ass. Then Zechs covered him, a heavy weight resting only for as long as it took to push Heero's legs wide and fill him. Rocked against the headboard, Heero grunted, and steadied himself. It didn't hurt-- Zechs had always held back from that, an unspoken agreement about the boundaries between them-- but it was abrupt, and odd, peculiarly alien. Giving in, Heero curled his knees under him, raised his hips. Zechs breathed against his back, a shaking inhale, and held him by the shoulders to push himself all the way in.

From there it went quickly, as it always had. His body brought pleasure, if not to himself. Zechs touched him, a steely grip around his cock that jerked and stroked and tried to bring him to life, the same zealous effort every time to force Heero to participate. His arm about Heero's hips held him in place, his cock sliding in and out with increasing force, friction building, sweat catching between their thighs. Heero held himself up on rigid arms, elbows locked, teeth cleched. Zechs wouldn't let him go until he came first, and he tried, sheer bodily willpower. Willing his body along. It wasn't unpleasant. He didn't mind it, and release would ease the aches of a few bad days on an unhappy mission, leave him clear-minded for a few new days ahead. Just--

He thought of Duo, falling out of the car, his shirt open, love bites already blooming to bruises on his chest, the quick guilty look of Zechs over his shoulder, hand that had been grasping snatched back. Thought of Duo in this bed, on his knees, Zechs in him, and wondered if Zechs had ever--

He reached his orgasm first, a pulse in his groin and a fever in his head that burst to stars. Yes, he thought he heard from Zechs, a gasp of ragged triumph. Zechs smeared his belly with it, left a moist patch on his shoulder as he fumbled for a renewed grip. Heero braced himself on the headboard, biting at his cheek as Zechs pounded into him, snapping his hips with all his strength, burying himself hard. When at last he groaned, shuddering to stillness, Heero was breathless, aching.

They lay on the bed cooling off. Zechs' weight on him was good, the one part he liked unequivocally. He knew he was strong enough to push him away, knew as well that if he tried it Zechs would let him, rather than test his tolerance. He didn't. He let Zechs kiss his spine between his shoulderblades, then above that, the back of his neck, just below his hairline. Lips on his earlobe, chasing his fading climax with a tiny frisson down alert nerves. Then, knowing he was waiting for it, head already turned for it, lips on his mouth.

Yes.

At some point Zechs pulled out of him. Rolled him. He lay on his back now, Zechs between his legs, skin tacking, too hot, fingers in his hair. Mouth on his mouth. He found his own hand resting on Zechs' hip, surprised by himself. He opened his eyes, and found as well Zechs' were closed, long white eyelashes brushing softly on his cheek. He swallowed suddenly, parched for-- air, something. Zechs let him go.

'Go if you want to,' Zechs said.

Heero breathed. 'You don't want to do it again?'

'And draw you away from your busy schedule?'

He shoved with his legs, and Zechs had to catch himself on the edge of the bed. Heero rolled away from him, swung free, strode to the pile of his clothes. He dressed, shrugging into his shirt, buttoning it swiftly, stuffing the hem into his trousers and belting them. They smelled like three days without washing, but he could get fresh at the barracks, and at the moment he only wanted gone.

At the door, Zechs' voice, low and vicious, stopped him. 'Duo would have stayed.'

Duo falling out of the car, his guilt writ all over his face. Zechs' behind him, trousers unzipped.

'You can always trade us off,' Heero said.

'I don't prefer his company.'

'No?' He looked at the window, a weary check on security that was mostly instinct, falling to staring when he realised what truly lay behind the curtains. It was snowing. It was Christmas, and it was snowing. 'Then does it matter that he would have stayed?' he asked dully.

The hesitation went on forever. It was excruciating.

'Not really,' Zechs answered, and left for the bath. A moment later, the shower ran.

Heero gathered his pack at the door, and left.

 

**

 

The rumours probably were fantasy, everything from orgies under the full moon to love triangles to a betting pool of when Maxwell would be murdered and eaten. Heero was a little suspicious the last one might be true.

They weren't assigned to the same barracks, but Heero found a corner to wait in at Duo's bunk, watching the clock tick toward curfew and gnawing at the grim worry in his mind. It was nearly ten. If Duo was out past lights-out, he would have to have permission to cover re-entry, and if he had that permission it would confirm Heero's worries. He curled his toes inside his boots.

The flow of agents in and out of the door had ebbed, and most were preparing for bed, low and easy chatter as they changed and cleaned and lounged. Heero checked his watch a final time, ready to make his way back to his own bunk with a disappointment for his venture, but stayed when the door opened a final time.

Duo.

He moved, but in his haste he drew attention to himself. Duo had seen him. Heero turned his back, making for the side exit, but Duo was-- had always been-- faster.

'Mission go well?'

He stopped. He rubbed an itch on his nose, dropped his hands to hang limply at his sides. 'Adequate,' he said softly.

'You okay?'

'Fine.'

Duo repeated it even more quietly. 'Fine.'

His shoulders hunched. He couldn't force them to relax. He felt a touch to his arm, just brushing him, though it sent ice up his veins. 'Duo.'

Duo's bunk creaked as he retreated to it, settling to the bottom bed with a metallic protest of his slight weight. 'What's up?'

'Are you... how was dinner.'

If Duo questioned him knowing where he'd been, he didn't speak it. He couldn't be unaware of the rumours, or of the curious sideways gazes of their fellow Preventers, who no doubt wondered the same thing and would strain to hear the answer. 'Good,' Duo said finally. 'Weird. He's a weird dude.'

'What does he want from you?'

'Haven't figured that out yet. Do you know how to play chess?'

'Chess?' He was thrown. 'Yes.'

'Could you teach me?'

He almost agreed. Crushing reality stopped him. He said, instead, 'We shouldn't be seen together.'

'Oh.' The bunk creaked, and Heero closed his eyes, Duo falling out of the car, Duo turning his back, limp and weary. 'Yeah. Right. Sorry. That was stupid of me.'

His feet were leaden. His gut was hollow. He turned. But Duo was waiting on him, watching him, eyes quiet and sad.

'I know what you think, but I'm not screwing him.' Duo blinked, once. 'He hasn't even asked.'

Treize, or Zechs. Heero didn't know, and he didn't ask.

Now Duo turned from him. Flat on his stomach, curling his pillow beneath his crossed arms.

'Merquise has a book on chess. I can borrow it for you.'

'Nevermind. It's not important.'

'I can borrow it for you.' His voice cracked.

Duo very carefully did not look up. The weight of everything unspoken between them was awful. 'Kay,' Duo said at last, husky and faltering. 'Thanks.'

He knew he shouldn't. He knew he shouldn't have stayed even this long, with the five-minute warning already being called, and too many people who might be eavesdropping. But his fingers, all independent of that cautionary instinct, curled about the bar of Duo's bunk. And Duo's rose to cover his.

'Is Zechs bad to you?' Duo whispered.

'No different than he was to you.'

'You don't know how he was to me.'

'But he's leaving you alone now.' Question or promise, he wasn't sure. He wet his lips. 'Can you make Treize leave you alone?'

'He'll lose interest.'

'Duo...' Duo's hand squeezed over his. He inhaled sharply. 'Happy Christmas.'

The alarm blared once, and the overhead lights dimmed on cue, leaving only the emergency lamps to glow. Heero let go, stepped away. He thought Duo's eyes followed him, but he made himself turn his back, and he walked, steady step after steady step, til he reached the door. He left, alone.


	11. Treize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'You are distressed,' Treize murmured. 'I had hoped you would be pleased.'

'I am.' Bancroft remained downcast, however. His hands, in his lap, gripped tightly enough to show white from the force of his restraint. 'If you send me,' Bancroft began, 'you know I'll go. But--'

'Adrian.'

'But, sir, you know I had rather stay.'

Treize did not respond to that outburst, other than to sit back with a sigh. Red with chagrin, Bancroft sat with his head low, silent now.

'Every soldier retires from the field one day.' Treize turned his small porcelain teacup in its saucer, removed the silver spoon to the tray. 'This is a reward, Adrian. Not a punishment.'

'Please forgive my emotion.' Bancroft cleared his throat, and did it again with something more like composure. He rose, abruptly, then floundered when he realised he'd done so without permission. Treize covered for his confusion by coming to his own feet. 'I'm quite recovered, sir. It was only the-- the weakness of the moment. Please forgive me.'

'I know of nothing to forgive,' Treize answered quietly. He laid a hand on Bancroft's shoulder. 'I look forward to the wedding. She's far lovelier than you are, you know. You must be prepared for a long marriage of exorbitant devotion. A woman like that deserves nothing less.'

At last that gentle tease earned him a tremulous smile. 'She'll get nothing less, sir.'

'Excellent.' He squeezed Bancroft's shoulder, and released him. 'Perhaps you wouldn't mind pouring me another round of tea,' he suggested. 'I believe my five o'clock will be arriving at any moment.'

'Of course.' Given a task, Bancroft threw himself into it, whisking away the empty kettle and used cups from their service. Treize idled at his desk, alone for a brief moment. A long day only half over, and the most mentally taxing part yet to come. He preferred his wits about him and a calm demeanour, if not a centred mind. It wasn't to be. He fully expected the knock requesting entrance only seconds after Bancroft exited. Duo Maxwell would be, of course, be early the one day Treize might have excused tardiness.

'Come,' Treize called, and left the mess on his desk with nothing but a brush of his fingers. It provided Maxwell with props, his scattered notes and papers, and he enjoyed that performance in its many iterations, sparing him the cleaning. He was settling into the chair before his hearth as Maxwell entered, carrying Bancroft's fresh tray of tea and looking more than usually sullen.

Treize put up a hand before Maxwell could open that tart mouth of his for some incisively rude commentary. 'I'm weary,' he said pointedly. 'Please just pour, Mr Maxwell.'

The boy's lips pursed. Treize had, perhaps-- only perhaps-- caught him off-guard with that. He set the tray on the edge of Treize's desk, and, miraculously, obeyed. He fumbled the elaborate platinum tools, unused to a formal service. He managed the strainers across the cups, but poured from the samovar before he realised there were no leaves inside. 'Um,' he said, and cleared his throat. 'How do I do this?'

'Use the water to fill the empty pot. It will already have been hotted and prepared.' Treize gave up the show, turning his eyes to the flames. Dying low. 'Lemon,' he said absently. 'One slice each, before you pour the tea.'

Some minutes passed in silence, then. Treize was only aware of it when a cup and saucer appeared at his hand, and he glanced up to his clock to check the time. Maxwell took the open chair for himself, boots together as he sank back, awkwardly balancing his own drink on his lap. When Treize sipped, retaining the saucer in his left and lifting the cup with his right, Maxwell mimicked him carefully.

'Not quite strong enough,' Treize said, but crossed his legs anyway and rested his shoulders back. 'Have Bancroft instruct you before you leave today.'

'Don't you have servants for this stuff?'

'Tea is often served over business. You will often be present at business for which servants would be inappropriate participants. It's a skill, and you are hardly in a position to turn away opportunities to learn.' Treize sipped again, and forgot the tea as soon as it returned to the saucer.

Maxwell subtly wormed for comfort in a chair made for a fully-grown man. He edged an elbow onto the wide leather arm. 'Your guy out there okay?' he asked finally, when Treize made no effort to fill the quiet.

'Bancroft.'

'I guess.'

'His employment has been severed.' A log in the hearth cracked and fell, disarranging the stack and emitting a puff of smoke. 'He is being discharged.'

'Let me guess. He made the tea too weak.'

'No jokes today, I implore you.' Treize looked about for a place to be rid of his cup, and set it on the set of reports he'd meant to read over lunch. 'He's been with me fully a year and a half. He'll be difficult to replace, and he'll be gone before he can train a successor. A terrible bother.'

'You know, he's out there practically crying.' Maxwell hesitated, the tip of his tongue emerging to roam his upper teeth before they bit the lower lip. 'You're lying about that. That it's a bother.'

'I most certainly am not.' He pressed his thumb to the spot between his eyes, pressure against a growing ache. 'It's a difficult post. To be on call at all times, to be both invisible and authoritative with a constant stream of demanding strangers. It requires extensive expertise in an array of sensitive issues and an even more diverse array of protocols. It's no mere hostess position. I require policy review, personnel oversight and coordination, correspondence and document management. Technical as well as combat experience.'

'And the ability to make tea.'

'Yes, Mr Maxwell.'

'So did he suck at it?'

'No,' Treize said. 'No, he was quite excellent.' He found his gaze on the clock again, ticking away time that felt ever harder to hold onto. 'He'll make an excellent ambassador, as well.'

Maxwell's dark brows rose. 'That's a bit of a bump. You buy him a position?'

'I was quite clear about the joking, Mr Maxwell.'

'I'm not.' Surprised by the evident irritation, Treize turned his head. Maxwell might not have appreciated the comparison, but he looked remarkably like the man who'd occupied his office only minutes ago, hands tight in his lap, head bowed, cheeks red. But when Maxwell raised his eyes, they were hard. 'You said you're cultivating me. I'm not going to learn jack if you don't fucking explain anything.'

'Watch your mouth, Agent.' Treize exhaled, evaluating the honesty of that. 'Perhaps you're right, at that. Very well. No. I did not buy the position for him. He earned the qualifications during his service with the military, and as my adjutant. His upcoming marriage provides him the necessary connections. The Noventas are old money and have an extensive network across European commerce and diplomatic circles. They're relatively free of unsavoury Romafeller associations, no small mark in their favour.'

Maxwell's frown deepened over that. 'Noventas. As in Marshal Noventa--'

'Deceased at New Edwards. Yes.'

'Your secretary is marrying into the family of a man you assassinated.'

'Did I?' Treize turned one hand palm-up, a shrug of indifference to that unveiled accusation. 'Heero Yuy attacked a plane full of men who were, to him, entrenched enemies.'

'Because you seeded fake intelligence.'

'I did, yes. But my purposes would have been served equally well by a threat from the Gundam Pilots. I needed a reason to move into prominence and to bring the Order of the Zodiac to combat alert. The only man who ever truly stood in my way was General Septum.'

'Who was never seen again after delivering a convenient announcement denouncing the Gundams and blaming us for destroying the peace talks.'

'A targeted elimination of a man who deserved a public execution. And Marshal Noventa may have ended his days in favour of peace, but the terms he'd used to extract decades of enforced subservience from Space included, as you'll recall, the use of men like Septum, who launched chemical weapons on rogue colonies.' Treize examined a ragged fingernail, his fingers flattened on his knee. 'With the denunciation of the Gundams and Colonial Resistance effected, the Order of the Zodiac had no more obstacles in overturning the Alliance. War with Space was never more than a convenient fiction, a manufactured event of my time and choosing. If you still believe the Alliance would ever have truly stood down and allowed colonial interests to flourish, kindly disabuse yourself of that notion. Marshal Noventa was only interested in his own legacy, and demilitarisation was a pretty word for disarmament of your brethren, not his. The Doves never intended to shake their legacy or their power base, and Space was never more than ancillary to their own self-aggrandisement.' Treize waited out the hot retort and the struggle for restraint that kept Maxwell pinned in his chair. 'Adrian will marry Sylvia Noventa,' he said then, when Maxwell only bit his lip and contributed nothing. 'He served on her protection detail. The attachment seems genuine. And he will be a part of shaping their new direction, a direction that betters everyone. The Noventas will finally be a part of the progress of history, not driving its drumbeat march into rot and ossification.'

The fire cracked the last whole log, and with a puff of ash it died. Treize picked up his tea and drank it. In the hall outside his door, he heard footsteps, voices too muffled to be comprehensible, and then that quieted, too.

'This is the game.' Maxwell's voice was dry and remote. Treize matched him.

'Yes,' he said.

'People are pawns. You move them around your board until you can destroy them when it serves you the most.'

'Remove from play,' Treize said, a ghost of a smile stretching his lips with grim amusement. 'Some pawns may be promoted if they last long enough.' The Gundams had been his knights, Zechs and Une his bishops... his uncle Dermail and cousin Dorothy his rooks, and their intended pawn Relena Peacecraft his king, a figurehead sometimes endangered, sometimes captured. Too many of those chessmen had been removed from play. Far too many.

'So your secretary out there,' Maxwell said, thoughtful now. 'Sylvia Noventa. They lasted, and you'll use them to reset the board.'

'There is such a thing as stretching a metaphor too far.' Treize stood, tugging his jacket hem to straighten it. He returned to his desk, and sat, leaving his cup to one side and tapping on his computer screen. 'A network is nothing but a group of men and women of like mind and capability who occasionally pursue the same goals. Bancroft has been as loyal a man as I could ask, and deserves a life in service of his own ambitions, not only mine. That some of our goals coincide is pleasing and useful, nothing more.'

'Well. Don't get all goopy about it or anything.'

He set his hands to the keyboard on his desk. Wrists in neutral posture, fingers curved. The persistant ache in a back too long uncomfortable in office furniture designed to look grand, not support lengthy work habits. The winter chill that had never bothered him as a younger man now seemed to cramp and numb unnecessarily, the glow of warmth from the fireplace never quite reaching his workstation. Eyestrain from staring at small type day in and day out.

He thought, I am indeed weary. And he truly didn't know what to do about a thing that had never been that way before.

Maxwell cleared his throat. Treize drew in a deep cleansing breath. 'You have a question, Mr Maxwell.'

He did not. He had brought his own stage toys, today. From the protective wrap of his coat, he produced a newspaper, or at least the first section of a berliner print. Maxwell's thumb rubbed at the flopping corners, to catch on a dogeared page. Treize took it, folded it open across the contents of his desk. He retrieved his glasses from their leather cup in the drawer and placed them over his ears. 'Yes?'

A bitten nail tapped the headline, buried below the fold on 5A. A literacy initiative for the refugee resettlement programmes. Sponsored by Milliardo Peacecraft, in coordination with his sister, the Princess of Sanq.

'Ambitious man,' Maxwell said. 'Coincide much?'

Treize briskly refolded the paper. 'I'm aware of the programme. The Peacecraft family seem to share a generous trait inclined toward public works.' He paused Maxwell with an upraised finger, and pressed the call button on his phone. 'Bancroft,' he asked mildly, 'please bring up my dinner appointment to six. I'm famished. Something simple, if you would.' He waited politely through Bancroft's confirmation, and finished folding the paper, along the bends it had acquired in Maxwell's coat. 'What about this draws your attention?'

'The programme? Nothing.' Maxwell propped a boot against the leg of Treize's desk; Treize felt the slight shiver of impact beneath his palms. 'He's asked Relena to accept a diplomatic appointment. In Washington in America.'

Yet more evidence that Maxwell was an accomplished young man, so far as listening at doors was concerned. One day soon Treize would probe his sources, for anyone careless enough to be overheard would eventually be overheard by someone more dangerous than this young man. 'I'm aware,' he said again, leaving out for the moment that this appointment, at least, had been bought, and that the offer had not come from her brother, but from Treize himself. 'She hasn't yet accepted.'

'She will,' Maxwell replied with disinterested certainty. 'She's under pressure. There was an op-ed in favour of it just yesterday. Sanq wants a constitutional referendum, not a monarch.'

'And?'

'And she's going to cave. She and Zechs both want the same thing.' Maxwell's dramatic pause lacked a little in the camp and the confidence to truly land his point, but Treize was amused to see Maxwell picking up his speech patterns. It was a favourite technique of his, perfected by speechifying at overactive teenagers used to being droned at by their officer corps.

'His ass on the throne,' Maxwell finally finished, a rhetorical flourish unique to himself, along with the thump of his boot landing on the carpet. 'She can't stand you, by the way. I'd watch that, if I were you.'

'Ah. Likely an unfortunate side-effect of certain...' He lingered on the suggestion, til Maxwell caught what he was doing and promptly rolled his eyes. 'Interactions during the war. But only one of us could be Queen of the World,' he added whimsically. 'So. You think Zechs is plotting.'

'I know he is. He's been moving the pieces around his chessboard for eighteen months.' Maxwell glanced at him sidelong. 'He hasn't discussed it with you?'

He noticed both Maxwell's adoption of his analogy and the clumsy attempt to manipulate him into envisioning Zechs as his opponent on that board. 'No,' he said, finding a pen and turning his attention to the cryptic puzzle on the back of the paper. 'Sanq is, after all, naturally more his concern than mine.'

'Everything is your concern.'

It went without saying-- but in saying it, Maxwell at least acknowledged the first of the many lessons Treize had intended to teach him. Say that for progress. 'Very well,' Treize agreed. He penned an answer to the first downward clue. 'What would you do?'

'If I were queen of the world?'

He did not betray so much as a twitch of a grin. 'Yes.'

'Put him there. As if it was the plan all along. And remind him he's grateful. The Lord giveth and the Lord can take it away.'

'Elegantly simple. And the underlying principle appeals to my ego.'

'He probably won't muck it up any worse than an elected official might, and you already know you can get him to cooperate with your agenda.'

He penned in two more clues in quick succession, but stalled on _Returned beer fit for a king_. 'It only delays the inevitable. We've been in disharmony for too long. Eventually, he will break with me.'

'Personally, maybe.'

'To Zechs, the personal is the political.'

'Not a luxury he'll have as king of Sanq.' Maxwell leant over the desk, reading upside down. 'Lager. Beer, five letters. Returned-- reversed. Regal. I don't think he's quite figured that part out. He's not a very smart man.'

'A little acrimony, Mr Maxwell?'

'I just call 'em as I see 'em.'

'And you're calling for a bait-and-switch.'

'Not at all. I'm just keeping you in the loop.'

'I appreciate it.' He inked _Regal_ into the boxes. But the game bored him, a superficial time-waster when too many unsolved problems lingered. 'The paper was a nice touch,' he dismissed it, pushing it at Maxwell and sitting back. 'But I have weightier problems than Zechs' designs on a rather small throne. Learn to prioritise, and don't involve me in your petty complaints.'

It stung. It was meant to. Maxwell blinked, once, before the shutters came down and he arranged his face into smooth compliance. 'Yes, sir.'

'It's six,' Treize said, as the clock chimed. 'Please open the door. Bancroft will be here with dinner.'

'I should just go.'

'I haven't dismissed you.'

It was very nearly a battle. Maxwell locked his jaw with an audible snap. In the end, however, he did as he was told. He stood courteously to the side as Bancroft brought in the rolling tray, and even helped Bancroft lay out the meal at the table. Treize turned on his computer screen again, but saw nothing of the database he'd left open. He roused himself to thank Bancroft, but found the man had already quietly withdrawn, closing the door behind him.

'You want a drink or something?' Maxwell asked, subdued. 'He left a little book of things. Recipes.'

'Hibiscus.'

'What?'

'It's coming to a head.' He closed his eyes, tilting his head to ease a sore neck. 'I want you to consider the problem of Hibiscus. We've eliminated the Kolkata cell. They were nothing more than teenagers with pipe bombs and internetwork accounts. We need to find the head. There's someone behind this. Someone determined to unravel what we've built. I grant this world is not perfect, but to plunge us back to war?'

'There's steps between outright war and living under a dictatorship, you know.'

That was revenge for his blunt reminder of the power disparity between them. 'Dictatorship.'

'You may not like how it sounds, but it's a word people know. It's a word people respond to. Rally against.' Maxwell lifted a lid off a plate and sniffed. 'Or didn't you think about that when you were running targeted eliminations on men who had the power to drop chemical holocaust on entire populations without so much as sending in a voucher for the petrol?'

Despite himself, he barked a laugh.

'I didn't really mean that as a joke.'

'Aim for that more often, then.' He tapped a key to change the screen to green. 'Your plan for Hibiscus. Re-write it. Re-write it to concentrate not on the cells-- they're nothing, outgrowths of an idea... shoots off a mother-root.'

Maxwell gave up waiting on him and sat himself down for his supper. 'You didn't say if it was my plan. Whatever you used against the Kolkata cell.'

'Hardly,' Treize told him. 'And even if it were, I'd never tell a soul. Half of leadership is taking credit.'

He won, that time. Maxwell hid a grin with his fork and a floret of broccoli. Treize watched until it faded. His own mirth drained as well. He said nothing more. Maxwell ate his meal in silence, and Treize allowed him to go afterward, never touching his own.


	12. Zechs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

The apple-cheeked boy who danced on the bar probably didn't know who they were, but it didn't stop him from picking out the importance of their retinue. He'd been eyeing Zechs for the last hour. The rib of his shorts inched lower and lower, til a thatch of blond hair at the groin emerged to view over the stark bulge of an erection straining the cotton placket.

'You have a fan,' Treize murmured.

'You don't usually have such seedy taste.' Zechs propped a foot on the glass cocktail table, before the rack of champagne, locally rolled cigars, and caviar of doubtlessly questionable origin that had been arrayed for their presumed pleasure. 'I assume there's a reason we're here and not at InterContinental, enjoying the Presidential Suite.'

'No taste for a bit of rough?' Treize contemplated the frenetic flash of the club lights through the bubbles of his glass. 'There was a time when a place like this would have been entirely underground. We frequented a few forbidden bars in our time.'

'And that time was underage, undersexed, and greatly undercultured,' Zechs replied. The bar boy turned away from to glance back coyly over his shoulder. Heero stepped into his line of sight, a casual shuffle that Zechs didn't doubt for a moment was fully intentional. Zechs snorted a laugh into his own drink. 'We were stupid in our time,' he said, and toasted his companion. 'To personal growth.'

Treize's grin was electric, white teeth in a splash of livid blue. They clinked their empty glasses.

A woman in a slinky leather dress was let past their VIP cordon, Heero checking her ID and Bancroft patting her down. Her eyes skipped nervously over the two men on the couch, but her smile was practiced and smooth. 'Compliments,' she said, in accented English. 'The owner appreciates your custom tonight. Anything we can give, please only ask.' She presented them elegantly with a silver tray bearing another bottle. 'Only the best.'

'Duzhe dyakuyu,' Treize murmured, watching as she tucked shiny black hair behind her ear. Her hand trembled. Treize maintained his polite smile as she ducked in something not quite a curtsey, and said no more as she backed out. Her heels clattered on the marble steps leading down from the loft, but the noise of her departure vanished into the din of club music.

Zechs retrieved the bottle she'd brought them. Vodka. 'Tomorrow's hangover will be wretched,' he noted. 'Is it good?'

Treize leant against his shoulder to read the label. 'Very.'

'Why are we in Kyiv, Treize?' Zechs plucked the stopper and sniffed it. 'We've met no-one important and we've drunk our combined bodyweight. And _you_ have no taste for rough. If you want the best booze I'm sure you can arrange to get it delivered.'

'I'm considering a business venture of sorts.' Treize proferred his flute, and Zechs poured for him. 'And, of course, being seen.'

'I wouldn't think you'd want to be seen in a place like this.'

'Even club-goers pay attention to politics. More importantly, the papers will.' Treize tested the vodka, and nodded approvingly. He raised his glass, and Zechs followed his eyeline to a man in a flashy suit by the bar. He mimicked the gesture, and Treize bestowed another of his courteous smiles, before turning back to Zechs and ignoring him. The owner, Zechs thought, watching the man hurry off shouting for a cadre of servers, and yanking the bar boy out of the limelight as he passed. So much for that show.

'Not club-goers,' Zechs corrected absently. 'Clubbers. It's a lifestyle, now. Soft drugs, copious alcohol. Sex. Dance.'

'Let the children enjoy their freedoms.' Treize propped an arm on the back of their couch. 'It's been a long, dark century. They were nearly thrown back to mediaeval times under Romafeller. Counterculture is a healthy sign.'

'And you plan to participate? Your stock portfolio has room in it for a little anarchism?'

'Hardly.' Treize loosened his collar with a flick of fingers still perfectly under his command, where Zechs was beginning to feel just slightly loose and uncoordinated after a full night of this adventure. Treize had eschewed uniforms for this not-quite-incognito evening ranging across Kyiv's less cosmopolitan side, though their faces were likely only slightly less famous than the average celebrity, and their escort wore Preventers' casual olive and brown and were openly armed. Zechs rested his chin on his arm, half deafened by the noise, fingers going numb.

'I was born in Ukraine,' Treize murmured, and Zechs rolled his head to listen. 'My father was a Belarusian Jew. Those were different times. He wrote about places like this in his newspaper. Smoking imported hashish, dancing to imported music from exotic places like the Americas. He wrote truly awful poetry, though I think Mother rather liked the effort.'

'You don't speak of him,' Zechs said. It was something they'd always had in common. Pasts that couldn't be discussed. Heritage that couldn't be known.

'My mother married him because she was pregnant and didn't have the resources not to be.' Treize retrieved the vodka and poured another, this time using the small tumblers provided by the club, rubbing a curious thumb over the club's emblem etched in the crystal. 'He was a fool. Foolish men drink too much, talk too loudly, pick fights with their betters. A disgraced journalist would probably have been shot in an alley. But my mother was noble through her father. So they exiled him instead. I don't believe she ever quite forgave him that.'

'That was very nearly us, you know.'

'I do.' There was no smile, not now. Treize never smiled for himself. He'd only rarely ever done it for Zechs, and the last instance Zechs was sure about had been at New Edwards. Zechs turned his face forward.

Treize sighed as the disc jockey launched into a new routine, calling the straggling dancers who were faltering as the hour reached nearly three in the morning. Those awake enough stumbled back onto the floor, weary arms waving above their heads, adorned with glowing neon sticks as the club plunged to blacklight. The music reached a headache-inducing frenzy, only slightly muffled in their VIP lounge lofted above the dancefloor.

'Vodka,' Treize said then. 'Epidemic, war, and vodka. The three highest-ranking factors in early mortality statistics in the Bloc. And we inflicted all of these on ourselves. Preventers will ensure that one claims no more lives. Disease will fade as war reduces barriers to safe travel, research, relieves the refugee camps. But vodka. What to do about vodka.'

Zechs paused with his tumbler at his lips. He sipped, cautiously. 'I don't understand.'

'Because you are so graciously and gracefully European, my dear.' The slight shade of red whiskers awaiting a fresh shave made the lines at Treize's mouth deeper. Zechs let the comment pass, waiting for the explanation behind it. Treize drank, as well, an effortless flick of his wrist followed by a lean to place the glass safely out of the way. His chest rose and fell beneath his white dress shirt.

'Some thirty thousand people die a year from alcohol poisoning within the Bloc,' Treize said. 'Thirty thousand. That's more than the entire casualty count of Alliance military in the last decade of hostilities, including Operation Daybreak. That makes three hundred thousand in a decade. The number is set to rise this year. And with it the projection of all those persons who would have been born and then had children of their own, on and on, to a difference of nearly seventy million people. I have a vivid imagination, Zechs, but even I cannot imagine seventy million people who will now not exist. Economists call it “opportunity cost”. A more apt term I cannot believe. Productivity. Art, science. The sheer human vaccuum of seventy million people.'

'Not even you can will seventy million people into being,' Zechs told him quietly. 'And even if you could, I fail to see how vodka is the sole difference. Or what you can do about it now.'

'Change the politics.' Treize caught his eyes, and Zechs nodded, because the expectant pose of Treize's eyebrows seemed to call for it, but Treize only shook his head patiently. 'Change the politics of it all. Our grandparents had prohibition. Our parents had state-controlled liquor distribution, and, with it, the curse of state-controlled taxation. How does a cash-strapped state raise revenue? It taxes things that people must or want to buy. And if it must raise more revenue, it takes control of licenses and advertising, imports and exports, and it creates monopolies. And when it must raise yet more revenue, it encourages its people to buy the thing that benefits those monopolies. Vodka. Vodka brings in nearly a nine percent of state revenue within the Bloc. It is the patriotic duty of every citizen to drink, so that the state may survive another fiscal year.'

Zechs had learnt a number of strange things under Treize's tutelage. Fencing, piloting, the art of the coup d'etat. Politics. He would never have the mind for it that Treize had, and he didn't want it, but he listened. Treize wouldn't tell him without a reason.

And wouldn't tell him anything at all without testing his active engagement in the lesson. 'If the state is that reliant on the sale-- sale and production-- you can't remove it without replacing it with something else,' Zechs said slowly.

'Tax reform will obviously be necessary, and indeed I cannot influence that. Directly.' Treize wobbled a hand, a gesture indicating not so much ambivalence as acceptance. 'What I can influence is the direction those revenues flow.'

'Legislative endorsements?'

'Would expend capital I may need in the future. No, I must reserve my name for when it is more dire.'

'Then what?' Zechs pressed, growing tired of the Socratic game. 'You may as well tell me. I'm at least two glasses of champagne past guessing.'

'I don't know,' Treize said simply. 'I don't have all the answers, my friend. I only know that this is a problem, and that I might be someone who could help fix it. Don't be irate.' Treize patted his knee. 'I only wanted a sympathetic ear. You will be King one day. You will have such weighty problems, too.'

That caught his attention. 'That responsibility may be many years away,' Zechs said slowly.

'Mm,' Treize said, providing no enlightenment at all. Zechs wet his lips.

The bar boy was back. Wearing a short silk kimono now, even more ridiculous than his undershorts, which shone in the blacklight beneath his robe. He lingered at the bar, apparently on break. The bartender brought him a pair of shotglasses each filled with some noxious neon drink. He lit a cigarillo, expelling a stream of smoke over his shoulder. He lounged, his eyes drifting over the dancing crowd, slowly returning to the lounge. He met Zechs' gaze. He withdrew the fag from his lips, and pointed with it. A side door, unmarked.

Zechs inhaled deeply. 'An anti-alcohol campaign,' he said, his voice emerging hoarse. He cleared his throat. 'The Preventers are a dry organisation. An example. You're the Director of Peacekeeping Operations. Institute policies aimed to eradicate the scourge of black-market alcohol at the refugee camps and in all territories occupied by active Preventers units.'

'And become a public scold.' Treize tilted his glass. 'And a hypocrite.'

'A little abstention would be good for you.' He leant forward for a cracker, dipping it into the bowl of caviar. It was a salty crunch to buy him time. Heero glanced at them, as he took one step down the stairwell to check on something. He returned, stone-faced, only a moment later. He shook his head at Zechs. Zechs didn't know what it meant.

'Not a scold,' Zechs said. 'Maybe a little old-fashioned. But you have a constituency who would be directly served by an anti-alcohol stance, and it would be entirely in keeping with your seat on the Security Council. Women and children.'

It was a rare victory, catching Treize by surprise. The blink Treize gave him was only barely a tell, but Zechs knew it for what it was. 'Women and children,' Treize repeated thoughtfully.

'The war already devastated support structures for the most vulnerable. The state is the only protector left and it has a responsibility to its weakest citizens. You won't be a scold. You'll be a powerful voice speaking up for those without influence. And then when you do call for alcohol revenues to be redirected, you'll have a movement to support, not just politics. Hospitals. Shelters. Community infrastructure. Public services supported by the very thing that makes it necessary.'

'Mm,' Treize said again, but there was a different quality to it now, and his eyes focussed, just to the left of Zechs, abstracted. Plotting. Imagining. And not saying no.

'Excuse me,' Zechs said, and pushed himself to his feet. If he wobbled just slightly, he made an effort not to show it. He managed a reasonably secure smile of his own. 'The gentleman's,' he murmured, and inclined his head. He brushed past Heero and Bancroft, taking the stairs slowly and steadily. Heero tailed him, nearly half the steps, stopped only by the fact that his Excellency was the more important of the two of them, that his duty split when Zechs cleaved at it. But he felt Heero's eyes on him, as he walked ponderously down those stairs, too drunk to spar and too sober to risk losing. Zechs stood for just a moment, at the bottom.

He headed for the unmarked door.

 

**

 

He opened his eyes at the soft clink beside his head. A glass was being placed on the table, and, more helpful, two white pills.

Zechs fumbled out an arm numb from being slept on. He flexed his fingers til they worked, and scooped up the pills. He swallowed them dry, and leant his aching head on his pillow.

The sheets that had slipped sometime during the night were drawn up and placed carefully about his shoulders. 'It's almost seven,' Heero said quietly. 'You have a conference call at eight and checkout at nine.'

No. Absolutely not.

There was movement beside him. Heero spoke again, from the other side of the bed. His words were too soft for Zechs to hear, but he felt the result. The warm body beside him slid out of the bed. Footsteps on the carpet. The rolling door of his bedroom slid open. The light was painfully bright. Zechs scrunched his eyes closed until the light went away.

'Zechs.' Heero again. This time he brought a mug of coffee. 'I can delay the call. I can't delay checkout. The shower is ready.'

'Damn vodka.' Zechs forced himself into a roll. Headache, and a bit of stomach upset, but it wasn't as horrid as it could be. His mouth tasted vile, but the coffee Heero put in his hand alleviated that. Zechs grimaced down a hot mouthful, wincing at the burn travelling his chest. He wiped at sandy eyes, blinked until he could keep them open. 'Treize had better be suffering.'

'He's been in the gym since six.'

'Show-off.' Zechs coughed out the frog in his throat. He looked blearily around him. 'You're damp.'

'I was working out with him.' Heero's wet hair clung to his cheek. It was shiny even in the dim. 'He said you made a crack about his drinking habits, last night. He takes you seriously even when you don't.'

'He should. It's noticeable. It won't be long before someone other than me notices it.' He swung his legs out of the bed. The carpet hurt his feet. Everything hurt. He cracked his neck, rubbed at the shoulder that always ached in the morning. Heero took that over, strong fingers digging into stiff muscle. He ghosted his other hand up Zechs' neck, into his hair, massaging tenderly. When Zechs could rotate in every direction with ease, Heero let him go, took the coffee mug away, and pointed to the bath.

'Shower's ready,' he said again.

'Then I obey.' He walked it, finding his formal uniform pressed and hanging in a sheer bag waiting for him, his boots shined. Heero had even packed his luggage. Their luggage.

He turned. 'The boy,' he said. 'I didn't get his name.'

'I'm sure he had one.' Heero faced him, blank-eyed, face like marble. 'I rang a taxi for him. He's gone. I don't think he knew who you were. He'll have no story for the press or anyone else who comes asking.'

'I don't--' Owe an explanation. Heero wasn't asking for one. Need reassurance. Heero wasn't offering anything.

Heero broke their stare to check his watch. 'Teleconference in forty minutes, sir.'

He turned away. 'Yes.' The shower was running, steam spilling out when he turned the corner to the ensuite. Naked already, he simply stepped from dry tile to wet, ducking into the spray of the showerhead. Hot, not burning. Shampoo and washing soap had been readied for him as well, a razor waiting on the shelf. He rinsed his mouth with a swallow of water, spat it at the golden drain at his feet.

Heero entered as he washed, laying out toothbrush, hairbrush, cologne. 'I had the hotel send up breakfast.'

'I don't want it,' Zechs replied, judging the shakiness of his hand before attempting a shave. He drew a deep breath, and set the razor to his chin.

'Protein will absorb the alcohol sugars.'

Zechs cut his cheek and swore. He wiped away blood and sting in the water. 'Say something.'

Heero was a steam-distorted blur on the other side of the glass. 'Such as,' he murmured.

'I don't know. I don't care.'

That earned him silence. This was how Heero resisted him, this was how Heero fought his lost war. Silence and reproach and contrariness. They were effective weapons. Zechs stripped soap from his hair, slapped off the spigot. When he thrust out a hand for the towel, Heero made him wait for it, made him reach for it. Zechs threw it back in his face as he stepped out of the stall.

Heero mutely hung it from a peg. Zechs ran the comb through his hair, spread paste on his brush and attacked his teeth, the sour taste on his tongue. Heero supplied his watch, his tags, his signet.

'You should join us for workout.'

Zechs looked up as Heero selected a pair of cufflinks from his case, setting them out on a folded flannel edged in silver. 'Since when do you spend any time at all with Treize?'

'His Excellency asked. If you don't want me to, tell him.' A blunt finger nudged the aftershave a millimetre closer to Zechs. 'You're getting soft,' Heero said. 'You may not be a pilot any more, but.'

'But what, Heero. What the hell.'

'But if you want Sanq, you're going to have to show him you're ready.' Their eyes caught briefly in the mirror; Heero looked away. 'Your idea about the anti-alcohol campaign. He liked it.'

'What?'

'He mentioned it this morning.' Heero collected all his toiletries, stacking them in place. 'Remind him what you're capable of. He's looking for a sign.'

Their shoulders brushed as Heero passed him by.

'Telecon at eight,' Heero reminded him, and left him alone with his thoughts.


	13. Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

Khushrenada is watching for his reaction. Duo plays his best poker face, but his muscles feel tight, and his eyes are dry from straining not to blink. Composure. He doesn't dare display anything but.

'Ugly beasts, aren't they?' Khushrenada murmurs. 'Assembly-line automatons.'

'They're weapons.' He shrugs. Tries to, anyway. One shoulder lifts an inch. The other one stays still. Khushrenada's hand is on it. It's the first time they've touched. Khushrenada touching him. It strikes him odd, because it's past a boundary that the Field Marshal seems to have with everyone.

But it's not aimed at him. Not really. They must make an interesting portrait. Two sworn enemies, getting awfully chummy. The new world order made flesh. Duo doesn't hear anyone make a peep about it, but he knows eyes are on them, and he resents the fuck out of it. He's a prop, and damn if the performance isn't note-perfect, exactly as Khushrenada wants it.

Khushrenada leaves him with a gentle squeeze. The tour group moves on, a loose semi-circle following the Chief Engineer. Duo angles his boots, intending to follow, but his knees are locked, and he only sways instead.

He inhales so deep his lungs burn. He'd missed that smell. Grease and sweat, and spilled petrol, that odd tingle of metal heated to burning. Frission, raising the hairs on his neck and an acid aftertaste of adrenaline on his tongue.

'Agent Maxwell,' Bancroft recalls him.

'Yeah. Coming.'

'I only meant to ask if you're all right.'

It's sort of a shame that Khushrenada's secretary is nice. It doesn't seem like a quality he gets to exercise around these people. No wonder Khushrenada's punting him off to some fancy title and an arranged marriage for political gain. Another pawn, Duo thinks, and then thinks as well that Bancroft isn't part of his game, and he doesn't need to keep tally for other people.

Duo turns his back to the new Gundams being constructed below. 'Coming,' he says.

 

**

 

'Smoke?'

Duo glances up from his book. 'Me?'

'You see anyone else sitting alone out here?' The girl invites herself onto his bench. She's in uniform, a skirt of exactly professional length that only moves an inch up her shapely legs as she sits. Local, though her English is smooth, only barely accented. Duo's eyes drop automatically to the bars on her collar. Junior Lieutenant.

'Sure,' Duo answers at last, taking the fag from the case she still offers. She gives him the lighter, and he tucks the stick between his lips, bluffing his way through unfamiliar actions. He's only ever used a lighter on his shoe polish. It's heat against his lips, and he smothers a cough when he inhales a harsh mouthful. He holds the flame for her, as she bends over his hand, cupping it with hers.

'What you reading?' she asks, crossing her legs and setting her back to the wall behind them.

Duo shows her the cover. 'Checking out the local tourist highlights.'

'Nothing good around here. Only excitement around here is whether the cafeteria manages to poison anyone before noon.' She exhales a stream of smoke. 'Eliska.'

'What?'

'My name. Eliska.' Her cigarette dips toward him. 'Now you tell me yours.'

He props his in his teeth and offers her a hand. 'Duo,' he says. 'Maxwell.'

Her grip goes tight as she recognises the name. They test each other, for a moment. He's impressed she doesn't let go. He doesn't know what she is, except for probably being a kick-ass poker player. Her eyes don't give away a damn thing.

'They bring you all this way to sit in the hall?' she asks then.

'Yup.' He tucks the book into the pocket of his camis. 'They bring you all this way to match numbers?'

'How would we know who's important if they didn't have an entourage?' White whisps dribble from her nose. Duo mimicks her one-fingered tap to the cigarette, ash dropping to the carpet below. 'I saw you with him.'

'Him who.'

'The only him who matters.'

'I don't know what they're talking about in there, if that's what you're fishing for. No-one invited me to listen in on all the secret shit.' He doesn't like the cigarette, all told, but she's better at making it look good, anyway. He doesn't remember the days when people didn't pose and play for everyone around them-- doesn't remember, anymore, the days when he didn't have to. He holds it the way she does, pinched between thumb and forefinger. Like an instrument. Or a weapon. 'You work on the Gundams?'

'You won't be allowed even the hall if you blab what little secret shit you do know.'

'We're in a classified facility. Everyone in here is read in.' He examines the tip of the stick, watches it glow red as he sucks on the filter. 'They're gonna fail.'

'Oh?' He thinks the tiny crinkle of her lip might be an actual expression. A pique of curiousity. 'You're the expert,' she murmurs, and reaches down to stub out her fag against the heel of her boot, a hiss and smoosh in the studied quiet.

Broken by the creak of the big doors opening. The red light above the door blinks out. The conference is over. General Cernosek is the first to emerge, cocking his cap as he walked and talking to whoever is behind him-- Khushrenada. Franke and Novotny, Bancroft and one of the other secretaries, a bunch of flunkies who all have functions no-one cares about, and, ignored and only barely more important than Duo, the Chief Engineer supervising the Gundam Project. They all spread out in a loose fan behind the Field Marshal, attending the conversation with great solemnity, as if Khushrenada were the Pope sermonising at Christmas. Duo stands. He's learnt it's the done thing, around men who liked reminders of their grandiosity. It's also the easiest way to stay out of the limelight; he behaves the way he's expected to, and he blends into the wallpaper. Only the tell-tale smell from their cigarettes says anything's unusual, and Eliska takes care of that. Under the cover of their bodies, she swipes the still-burning fag from Duo's hand, dropping it to the carpet and stepping on it.

Khushrenada's eyes catch everything. He's always watching. That perpetually arched brow rises just a little higher in amusement.

'If our business is concluded,' Khushrenada says then. 'We can safely adjourn to our afternoon amusements. Agent.'

His summons. 'Your Excellency,' Duo replies politely.

'Our hosts have prepared a brisk ride for us. Have you ever sat a horse?'

He blinks, because that's expected of him, too. 'It's got a safety belt or a handrail or something, right?'

That brings out the smiles, a level of contempt just one side of eye-rolling. 'Our colonial recruits know their way around weapons,' Khushrenada observes. 'The march of science into Space leaves little room for the quaint remains of countryside living.'

That is most definitely a twinkle in Khushrenada's eyes.

The world, Duo thinks, more despairing than dry, is probably ending. His ancestors are probably rolling in their graves.

At the very damn least, there's a queasy curl of something not quite pain in his gut. He smiles grimly through it. He's played along this far. Another couple of hours won't kill him.

There's a drive out to the stables, a goodly half hour from the factory. He's banished to the end of the convoy, not important enough to crowd the Field Marshal, and not decorative enough to serve as a set piece, not now. He marvels at it, distantly, as he stares out his window at the Carpathians, green against a filmy backdrop of stormy grey skies. He marvels at being dragged all the way to Slovenská republika just to be seen looking at a Gundam by people who-- by people who what? Khushrenada and his motives, this long game being played on everyone else. Duo is very much a pawn, but he doesn't know what this move is about. Putting him in frame with the new breed of Gundams, because he was a Gundam Pilot, because he'd lost a war against all those people riding ahead of him, and he's a-- warning, maybe. Or maybe not. He can't follow it, and doesn't know if that makes him stupid, or just human. He isn't convinced Khushrenada is.

They exit the cars at a barn the size of a mansion. Duo is escorted by a footman who either doesn't speak English or won't speak it to someone so lowly, led to a changing room complete with artfully deshabille plaids and ginghams. The clothes they give him are meant for a bigger man-- or maybe, Duo thinks, a bigger woman, because the cut of the trousers don't leave a lot to the imagination, but the boots fit and it's warmer than his uniform. He shrugs into a thick leather coat, belts it tight.

Eliska, he notes, is wearing trousers an awful lot like his. He tries to tug discretely at his package, hoping his aren't as tight in the crotch as hers are.

Khushrenada looks like a-- well. Broad shoulders, muscled thighs. Proud neck with a carelessly tied scarf a blousing white against his pale skin. Striding past them to the wide doors, through a crowd of yapping dogs that seem to have come out of nowhere, all of them barking and jumping and overly excited about what promises to be a wet afternoon, if those threatening clouds overhead are anything to go by. Khushrenada gets the proudest of the horses, of course, a sleek roan like him in every respect, right down to the quick precise steps of its hooves on the packed dirt. When Khushrenada swings up into the saddle, they move as one, twirling a tight circle, rearing up on the back legs like they're posing for a statute. Show-off, Duo mouths, not meaning to be caught at it, but Eliska notes it, her head cocked thoughtfully.

Duo is rather less graceful getting mounted. His footman assists with a shove at his bum. Duo's ears feel hot, and he knows he's redfaced. Cernosek makes a too-low-to-hear comment to Novotny, who grins in Duo's direction. Duo doesn't really mean to add to the spectacle, but he drops the leather leash thing when the footman tries to pass it up, and grabs at the horse's hair as it trots forward a few feet. The footman rescues him.

Khushrenada walks his horse beside Duo's. Bancroft is behind him, always right behind him, carrying a pair of wood-handled rifles and bags of shot. Khushrenada's coat is open despite the weather-- brisk is an understatement too bland to capture the boiling black of the clouds ringing the mountains, the lightning off in the distance, the cut of the wind whipping them. A pelt of wet drops tosses Khushrenada's bright hair out of its careful arrangement. Duo scrapes his own hair out of his face, loops his fringe behind his ears as it flies into his mouth. Elegant.

'Don't sit like a sack of grain,' Khushrenada offers quietly. The footman packing Duo's guns glances up, probably mortified to witness Duo's humiliation. 'Straighten your back. Hold with your knees and sway with the horse's motion. Reins like this.'

'What are rains?'

'Reins,' Khushrenada repeats, lifting the leather leash thing. He holds them between thumb and light forefinger. 'The reins are your connection to your mount's mouth. You can inflict damage. As if you are holding a cup of tea.'

'You and your god-damn tea.'

Bancroft grimaces at him. Khushrenada only corrects him patiently. 'Straight line through your elbow to the horse's mouth. Good.'

Duo inhales. Private lessons would have been a lot more helpful in the hours they'd been on the plane, but he supposes this is preferable to Khushrenada watching him fall off the horse on the side of a mountain, or whatever else would have amused his fancy friends. 'In five minutes I'll look like the rest of you,' Duo says. 'Just watch.'

Khushrenada's grin is challenge and sly agreement in one. 'If you bag a buck, I'll buy you a medal.'

'If I kill something for you I'll expect a helluva lot more than a medal.'

That eyebrow. 'Oh, indeed?'

'I don't come cheap.'

'Mr Maxwell, the best never do.' Khushrenada raises a gloved fist high. 'Friends,' he calls. 'We hunt.'

Someone actually blows a horn. Duo can't help rolling his eyes again. Khushrenada laughs, a soft private chuckle just between the three of them, carrying no farther. He wheels his horse about and flaps the rein things, and then he's off at a snappy canter, leaving Duo behind.

It takes him a little longer than five minutes to figure out how to handle the horse while it's running and bouncing him around, but Bancroft hangs back with him, doling out advice in helpful moments. By the time they're splashing across a muddy stream he's able to pull ahead and convince the horse to jump the ditch in the far bank rather than come to a grouchy confused halt, like Novotny's mount. Khushrenada notices, and Duo's maybe, possibly, a little proud of that. He pretends not to notice Khushrenada noticing, though, and spends his time making sure he never gets too far ahead or too far behind.

The shooting starts once they reach the woods. The dogs all go wild for something, and in the cacophony there's suddenly a wild thunderous boom. Trojan, the major who's been up Novotny's ass the entire trip, and who immediately starts bragging about it to his general, though when the dogs come dragging back his game it turns out to be just a smallish bird. Everyone coos over it, though, first kill flipping a switch in all of them. It goes from holiday ride to serious slaughter. Khushrenada gets the second kill, a roe fawn, the retort of his rifle echoing off the trees. Pheasants, so many the party starts ignoring them, and the occasional wild pig, but the deer seem to be smart enough to stay away. Duo doesn't see the shot that gets the big badger, just sees the footman carrying it back to the horse that's hauling all the dead things. The small claws are limp and there's blood dripping down the soft-looking brown fur. Duo faces away. He keeps his rifle across his lap, aimed at the ground.

'You don't like hunting?' Eliska asks him.

'I don't like waste,' Duo answers shortly.

Bancroft's head turns toward him. The scar on his chin stands out in the odd dimming light of the woods, the storm rolling in. His gun dips toward the ground, rises up toward Duo. Duo tries not to think about it, an OZ officer aiming at him. He knows it's not that. Not anymore.

'The Gundams,' Eliska says.

Duo checks his watch. They've only been at this an hour. He has no idea how long hunting is supposed to last. 'What about them.'

'Your Gundam.'

He feels a chill that has nothing to do with the weather. Her dark eyes are waiting for him.

He's surrounded by people he waged war against but he knows in that second the danger comes from someone he would have called an ally. The same twinge of instinct that had gone sour at the sight of Bancroft's gun goes taut and knowing when he sees hers rise. How long was she waiting for an opportunity? Who is she, who's behind her? That poker face reveals absolutely nothing. She's raising her rifle, one hand under the barrel and the other on the trigger, and the muzzle swings around.

Duo shoots her between the eyes.

It's a minute before anyone else even registers it. The shooting actually goes on, four or even five more shots, and the dogs are still barking and running all around them. Bancroft's shaky 'Jesus' gets swallowed up in the fray. Eliska slumps over backward. Falls out of the saddle, dangles there for a moment trapped by the stirrups. Crumples into a heap on the dirt, one leg still caught.

Duo slides off his horse. It minces a couple of steps away from him, drops to a docile stop to mouth at a bush. Duo ignores it. His boot slides in brain matter as he steps over her body. He doesn't have to check to be sure, but he presses his fingers to her neck and finds no pulse. Her eyes are open. The hole over the bridge of her nose is just starting to bleed.

Someone rips the rifle out of his hands. He's shoved up against a tree. Michna, the engineer. Holds him there with a pistol at his chest, pinning him.

It's slow-wheeling chaos. Stuttered questions changing to yells. Everyone's on their feet, the horses are getting spooked, horrified footmen are trying to drag the dogs out of the way. 'She's dead,' someone calls, and that lets loose the torrent.

Duo knocks the gun away. The engineer fists his coat, rattles him back against the tree, crams the muzzle into his jaw. 'Murderer,' the man spits.

Even to himself his voice sounds flat and disinterested. 'She was aiming at the Field Marshal.'

'He's lying!' That's Franke, he thinks, who's red as a pickled beet. The ambassador, a grey-haired old man with glazed eyes, is staring at the body, and the only other woman, Duo never caught her name, is using the satellite phone to call for the house, to call for guards, helos, all kinds of useless nonsense. The word 'Gundam' goes around like a whisper on the wind. And it starts to rain, because of course the fuck it does.

Duo wipes his hair out of his face, and shoves at the gun digging into his cheek. 'General Cernosek saw. He was just slower than I was. Ask him.'

Still centre of all the circus, Khushrenada in his sleek black coat, his ginger hair flattened to his forehead by the rain. Duo can see his fingers tapping on the gold flintlock of his gun.

Khushrenada turns his head, very precisely, to Cernosek. The General is staring at Duo, but senses the movement, and he glances back, drops his chin to his chest.

Until the moment he speaks, Duo's not sure what he's going to say. But Cernosek looks up again, meets his eyes, no pretence. 'Crack shot, sir. She was sighting on you. He saved your life.'

Duo tilts his head away from the engineer's gun, takes it with his left hand. 'You left the safety on,' he tells the man, nudging the lock to red. 'Hope they don't send you out into the field with training like that.' He cocks the slide and loads a round to the chamber. 'Like this.' He fires again, and everyone recoils. The brush explodes into shivering leaves thirty feet from Khushrenada's horse. A spotted deer staggers out of the undergrowth, totters a couple of feet with a lowing groan, and collapses unmoving.

Khushrenada might be the only one who doesn't flinch. Duo lifts his chin, defiant.

Khushrenada laughs. 'Someone go get that,' he says. He looks to the sky, shrugs his shoulders. 'Clean up the woman. Let's keep moving. I find I want to ride.' He clucks to his horse, calming it with a pat to the long sleek neck, and kicks it into a walk. He doesn't look back to see if the rest of them are following.

Cernosek joins Duo at Eliska's body. A footman brings a blanket from the packs, but Duo stops him from draping her with it. He pats at her pockets, opens her coat. She's only got her credentials, a tube of lipstick, the cigarette case. He checks the soles of her boots, pries at them, finds nothing hidden.

Cernosek is the one who unearths it, a tattoo on her shoulder, as they strip her of her clothing, roll her limp body to examine her skin. He touches Duo's elbow for his attention. Shows him the ink. 'What is that?' Duo asks, wiping rain from his face and squinting in the poor light.

Bancroft crouches across the body from them. He meets Duo's eyes with ghoulish paleness. 'It's a hibiscus flower,' he says. 'You were right.'

'I want her personnel file,' Cernosek snaps at his secretary. 'I want every record she's ever touched. Her computer and her laptop. And everyone in her section on polygraphs, immediately.'

Duo pushes to his feet. He finds a flask on his saddlebag, a bottle of water that tastes like leather and lime. He drinks half of it, splashes his face. Feels the hollow rush a second before it's going to happen, and bends over to puke a thin stream of bile onto his shoes.

'Awkward,' he mumbles, when Bancroft hesitates to join him, but he takes the proffered handkerchief, wiping his mouth, his sweaty temples. Scrapes his boots in the grass.

'Something stronger,' Bancroft offers then, a smaller, silver flash. It's the second time in one day Duo's taken so many things offered to him by strangers, people who have all kinds of reasons to want him on their side or to warn him off or he doesn't even know what. Reaching for the booze doesn't feel any different than reaching for a ciggy, both harsh on his tongue. He swigs once, a tiny mouthful that tightens his jaw and takes the taste of vomit out of his mouth. He wipes his face again. Breathes.

 

**

 

It's more than an hour before he feels ready to face Khushrenada, and he only does it because there's no sign of the hunt ending soon, even if they are riding through a bloody typhoon. The weather means no more animals, but that doesn't seem to bother the Field Marshal, whose mood is almost obscenely cheerful. Khushrenada chats with everyone, laughs at jokes, tells a couple of ribald stories that set the older officers especially into startled guffaws. It's all very congenial, all very upper crust and silly and Duo is grinding his teeth so hard he's getting a headache. He waits for his moment, when Novotny has to drop back to speak to one of the others, and flaps at the reins until his horse gets the message. He forces his way between Franke and Trojan, next to Khushrenada, and lets their unease with him take care of the rest. It's only a moment before they drop back, too. Bancroft just politely cedes his spot. He and Khushrenada are alone.

Duo opens with, 'You owe me for the buck.'

If anything, Khushrenada is more relaxed now, after a botched assassination attempt, than Duo's ever seen him. 'Not a buck,' the Field Marshal replies sedately. 'The buck is the male. That was a half-grown hind. Sika. Introduced only a decade ago to replace the red deer. Overpopulated, with few natural predators. War is a curious ecosystem.'

'A deer is a deer.'

Khushrenada flashes him an amused sidelong. 'So it is. A medal, I believe we agreed.'

'I don't want a medal.' Duo licks his teeth. 'I want that secretary job. When Bancroft leaves.'

If that's as much news to Khushrenada as it is to Duo, who hadn't known he'd say it til it was past his lips, there's no sign in Khushrenada's serene poise. 'It's beneath you,' he says.

'It's a stepping stone.'

'To what.'

'To whatever comes next.'

Khushrenada lets a beat pass. Duo's not really in doubt of his answer, though. 'As you like.'

'It's settled then.'

'Yes. I'll have the security clearance pushed through. You can start as soon as we return. Adrian will have a few days to train you before he leaves at the end of the month.'

'Cool.'

Khushrenada laughs at that. A quiet laugh, but, so far as Duo can tell, a genuine one.

'I won't go hunting again,' Duo says then.

Khushrenada sobers. He nods. 'It's not for everyone. Thank you for your participation.'

Agreement, he thought he'd get. Not a thank you. If this is the axis this world spins on, he's in for a ride. 'You brought me here for a reason.'

'You can't believe I won't test you.'

Did-- was this a test? Did he know there'd be an attempt on his life? Setting Duo up to see what he'd do? No-one is that confident. Couldn't be confident that Duo would even try to save his life, much less that he'd manage it, in a crowd like this. And a woman is dead, that's as real as it gets. Not even Khushrenada and his imaginary chess game would sacrifice someone with no purpose other than feeling Duo out. So it must come as a revelation, then, or at least an opportunity for re-evaluation. He'd brought Duo here for-- yes. For the Gundams. The hunt is incidental, a surprise, so it's the Gundams that matter, and that was the test, and he wants to know, suddenly, burns to know what the hell Khushrenada thinks he saw out of that, but damn if Duo's going to beg to know if he passed.

So instead he levels his shoulders and nods as if he understands and even welcomes it. 'I expect you will test me again and again.'

'And I hope I'll meet your tests as well.'

He pretends that doesn't cut him to the quick. 'I'll let you know.'

Khushrenada smiles at that. Just a curve of his lips, etched stonily. 'We'll fly back this evening. It will take them time to re-secure the base. The plane was never boarded by anyone by my hand-picked crew. It's safe enough.'

'She was Hibiscus.'

'I am not surprised to hear that.'

'Did you know?'

'Of her connections? No. I had never met her before today. She had the proper clearances and a thorough background check, as do all who work on the Gundam Project. Our opponents are never stupid people, Mr Maxwell, but fanatics very often make stupid mistakes.'

'She didn't shoot at you because you're the Secretary General of the ESUN Council. She shot at you because you're Treize Khushrenada. Someone got her into this party today. You want to keep trusting that everyone else with a loaded gun here is going to be stupid?'

He's amused the Field Marshal. But those fingers are tapping. Tap, tap, on the reins. Khushrenada's horse shivers under him, tossing its head. Khushrenada reaches down to stroke its thick mane.

'Start today, then,' Khushrenada says. 'Bancroft will share the dossier for the trip-- including the clearances of everyone in this little hunting party, the factory, and the base command. Have a report ready for me tomorrow at 1600.'

'I will,' Duo answers. 'You should be deciding how much of today makes the news services.'

'A Gundam Pilot saved the life of Field Marshal Khushrenada. Hail the Rapture.'

'You couldn't have planned it better.'

'Survival is eighty percent planning, ten percent luck, and five percent pure chance.'

'And the other five percent?'

'Repetition. The more often you're seen to survive, the more indelible your immortality becomes in the public mind.'

'You're not a god, Treize.'

Khushrenada's laugh is bright and full. 'That would be arrogance, Mr Maxwell. I have my share, but never that far.'

'Uh huh.'

The rain is letting up. There's a streak of sun poking through over the mountains. They're soaked through, every last one of them, and Duo is no closer to figuring out what it means than when they launched this morning. Gundams. Why did she ask him about his Gundam? She had to know that even if she'd succeeded, she'd be killed. At the least captured and interrogated in a deep, dark hole. Implicating him?

He'll never know. He supposes it doesn't really matter, then, in the end.

Khushrenada breaks the momentary silence with four quiet words. 'You have my gratitude,' he says.

There's a pinch in his lungs, trying to breathe around that. Maybe he's the one who couldn't have planned it better. Gratitude. It doesn't change anything; he isn't stupid, either, and it would have been deadly stupid to believe it would change things. But it is something. It is something, and he'd have to reckon with it, and Khushrenada too.

'Yeah,' Duo says. 'You're welcome.'


	14. Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Try not to look like a drowning rat,' Sogran muttered.

'I won't pretend to be easy with this.' By now he knew enough to stand still when Sogran fussed over his shirt, his hair. 'I'm expected at ComSec by six. I need time to clean up.'

'You'll stay as long as necessary.'

'If I'm late it will raise questions about where I've been.'

'Then lie.'

'Lies can be found out.'

'Then lie well.' Sogran shoved at his shoulders til Quatre about-faced, putting him in line with the door. Heavy hands laid along his shoulders, gripping tight. 'We need them. They'll test you. Don't fail.'

No pressure, Trowa would have said, with that tiny curl of his lip that was never quite a smile. Quatre kept that face in his mind's eye. He drew a deep breath, straightened his spine. He depressed the latch, and entered.

 

**

 

He knows some of the men-- always men-- Sogran recruits to their cause. They always know him. It galls, to know Sogran is right about him. He's a symbol. He's a sigil, conjuring up loyalties out of despairing wastrels. They never get the best of who they might have had; Sogran either fears to approach them, or they're wise enough, nearing three years after a defeat that nearly smothered the world in firestorms and dustclouds, to stay away. What they speak of is treason, and what they plot is dangerous, too rich for weak blood. Quatre speaks only as necessary, to bring them in. With his blonde hair curling over his ears and his fingers curled into still fists on his thighs, he sits amid them, Sogran at his shoulder, a puppet propped on a throne of wild designs. His voice speaks Sogran's words. His eyes are hollow. He is hollow, all his insides washed away, and he feels brittle like glass, pale enough to see through.

 

**

 

Ralph stopped him rising with a touch to his knee. 'You didn't finish.'

Quatre pushed at his tray. 'I'm not hungry,' he excused himself, and made again to rise. Again, Ralph stopped him.

'You can't never be hungry,' Ralph said. 'Eat something or I'm going to shove it down your fecking throat, you little liar. I'm not watching you kill yourself.'

That wasn't loud enough to carry beyond just their seats. Despite himself Quatre shivered. His palms were damp, fingers slick on the plastic edges of the tray. If he turned himself just slightly left, he didn't have to meet Ralph's brutally confrontational stare.

'I meant that,' Ralph said. 'In case it's not clear. Sit down, Quatre.'

His muscles protested the slow control of easing himself back down on their bench. 'Please don't raise a fuss.'

'That's up to you, innit.' Apparently satisfied with his obedience, Ralph resumed his own meal, shoving beans on the tines of his fork with the flat edge of his knife. He wiped his mouth with his serviette as he chewed. 'Now.'

Quatre ate mechanically. The soggy toast beneath the beans, the dredge of red sauce. They ate in silence. He cleared his plate, set silverware at a precise five o'clock angle on the rim. Folded his hands against each other, between his knees, and waited to be acknowledged. His father had been no less demanding. He thought that, could even picture his father, glaring at him beneath those impressively bushy brows and scowling away the stubborn silence. It raised nothing in him. He was forgetting how to feel about it.

When Ralph passed him the stick of chocolate, he took it as he always did, sliding it toward a pocket. But Ralph's hand followed his, grasped at his wrist, overlaying the bruises of other fingers that had gripped there.

'Eat it in front of me. I'm not asking.'

'What are you proving?' Quatre ripped at the foil. Ralph wouldn't free him, so he used his other hand to raise the chocolate to his lips. It was warm, almost to melting, and good, good enough to have been bought in town, not nicked from the Commissary's meagre supplies of such delicacies. Still he had to choke it down. 'Satisfied?' he demanded, tongue slick with it, and forcing himself to swallow.

'Quatre,' Ralph began, but never finished. Quatre sat still til Ralph's hand fell away. He stood, grabbed his tray, and he left. He didn't look back, and Ralph didn't follow.

 

**

 

'You're all over sweat.' Sogran's grimmace of disgust was nothing more than a frown beneath the dim glowing orange of the bare corridor bulb.

'I was at PT,' Quatre said. 'And I'll have to get back to it. You're calling too often. My chief is getting suspicious.'

'And of what exactly is she suspicious?'

Their convenient fiction. He was in Sogran's rooms or out-of-the-way back halls too much not to be suspected. Sogran never touched him, not for that, but it wasn't far enough away from the truth to remove the sting.

He wiped wet from his neck as he entered. Two, this time. He inclined his head, and took the seat waiting for him, little more majestic than an crate on cracked concrete. He memorised faces, every time, memorised the measure of unease he read in downturned lips, eyes that skittered toward the noise of the air in the vents, the creaks of floorboards overhead. The way one tapped fingers to something too scattered to be rhythm, on the butt of the pistol strapped to his waist. The other was unabashedly curious of him, returning him stare for stare, lingering on the stain of sweat at his chest, the mud on his boots.

'I'm here,' Quatre said simply. 'Ask what you came to ask.'

The impatient one raised a glower to Sogran. 'He's a boy,' he accused.

'Nineteen,' Sogran answered, crossing his arms like a golem at the door.

'In March,' Quatre clarified. The burn in his calves from his interrupted exercise distracted for a moment. He eased his seat, stretching subtly. 'That's not what you came to ask.'

'You don't have the accent of a colonial,' the curious one said then.

'There are many dialects in the Colonies. Sometimes more than one on a satellite, much less the hubs.'

'I didn't know that.'

'The Colonies are quite diverse.' Always men, white men, and almost always well-born, or wealthy in their own right, Quatre had noted that, as well, and didn't know if it reflected Sogran's prejudice or those of the pool of possible recruits of their cause. 'I spent time on Earth as a child,' Quatre said then, volunteering it by rote. They always seemed amazed, his rich pale-skinned nobles play-acting at rebellion. 'I attended a boarding school in northern Europe.'

'Ah,' Curiosity said, pleased and amused at the civility of it, Quatre thought, catalouging the flicker of expressions within a lazy smile. 'I suppose that explains it.'

'You have the Gundams,' the other one said, fingers tapping away. Nerves. Strain in the shoulders. And directing that not at Quatre, but at the puppetmaster behind him. 'Your little uprising will be nothing without weapons.'

'We know where it is,' Sogran replied coolly.

'I heard they were broken down,' Curiosity interrupted. 'Stripped for parts. Deconstructed for design specs.'

'His Excellency would never waste all his resources,' Quatre said. 'Some were, yes. Altron. Wing Zero and Tallgeese. Not the others.'

That earned him two probing stares. 'Hm,' Curiosity approved, nodding slowly.

 

**

 

Captain Ursa assigns him one more extra lap in punishment each time he's late; he's up to nine. He misses his dinner, misses Ralph's nightly opportunity to coerce him with guilt, and deliberately avoids the showers after til he's sure Trowa has gone already. There's no hot water left by the time he gets a stall, but he lets the faithful pressure of the pipes pound at sore muscles, numb out the persistent headache. He thinks about drowning. He closes his eyes, lets the prick and pringle of the chilly spray on his face wash him out, wash him empty, wash him away.

 

**

 

It was late, and it was last-minute, no time to locate an unused storeroom or an empty barracks. The meet was in Sogran's suite in the officer's block. Quatre ducked his head when a whispered crack reached his ears, deliberately vulgar. The appearance of shame satisfied the rumours.

Sogran answered his door in full uniform, though his ascot was untied, loose down his chest, and shirt beneath unbuttoned. He bore a crystal snifter of brandy in one hand, facial muscles slack. Truly drunk, Quatre saw, and swallowed a prick of worry. 'Winner,' Sogran greeted, thick-tongued, waved him in. His escort's precisely snapped salute went unnoticed. Quatre pulled the door shut behind him.

Sogran sprawled on the low couch, joined by his little dog jumping up to the cushion with him. Quatre linked his hands behind his pack, at parade rest. 'Your note said it was urgent,' he said. 'Sir.'

'Mm.' Sogran emptied his glass in three successive swallows, upending the snifter to watch the caramel crawl of the final drop. He caught it with a fingertip and licked it clean. 'Pour another. There behind you.'

Quatre turned. A small silver stand, with only a single bottle on it. More crystal, not the best crystal, and, from the sharp stink of alcohol when he pulled free the stopper, not the best brandy. He poured a careful finger of liquid, brought the snifter on a small square of white lace. Sogran's rough laugh was meant to wound, but Quatre waited impassively, and Sogran took both when his voice ran out.

He drank it immediately, too, and returned the glass. 'Another.'

Quatre poured. When it was back in Sogran's hand, Quatre knelt, his knee bumping the velvet skirt of the couch. He pulled Sogran's foot onto his thigh. The buckle just above the calf slipped easily open. The next stuck, for just a moment, requiring greater attention. Quatre freed it, and the third at the ankle, and pulled at the boot. It came off with a soft whuff of air. He set it aside, and shifted to attend the other foot.

Sogran tipped the snifter beneath Quatre's nose. 'Another.'

'You've had enough.'

'Argue with me, boy. I invite it.'

Quatre brought the boots with him as he crossed the suite. He set them on the mat in the hall for cleaning. Stoppered the foul-smelling brandy, and dimmed the light. He added a faggot of wood to the fire, pausing long enough to break up the burnt-out logs with the poker, before drawing closed the wire screen. At his whistle, the dog leapt from the couch and hurried toward him. Quatre bribed it with a bit of bone from the Mess, and it retreated to its bed to chew contentedly.

Sogran was staring away from him when he finished at his self-appointed tasks. Quatre waited, but Sogran said nothing. If he even remembered Quatre was there, it didn't show on his drawn face. He just stared, unblinking, at the bare wall.

Quatre slept at the dinette, head pillowed on his arm. Captain Ursa gave him two more laps for missing curfew-- eleven in sum, now. It made him late for everything else, but he no longer knew any different.

 

**

 

Curiosity brought two more to them. They were eager, one older and battle-scarred, one young and bearing himself with the kind of barely restrained fury that told Quatre they were best rid of him before he exposed them accidentally. But he said nothing about it, only memorised their faces, and let Sogran take their money and do whatever it was he did with such secrets.

Curiosity stopped beside him at the door, waiting as they always did to be sure they would escape unnoticed. Quatre listened with an ear to the plywood, shook his head. Someone passing too close.

A touch to his neck made him flinch. Curiosity, leading with a fingertip. 'You've nicked yourself shaving,' the man observed. He showed Quatre the stain of fresh red.

Quatre swiped at it. The footsteps outside were fading. Sogran took the first escape, and Quatre hurried with the door, waiting long minutes to be sure he got away.

'Which school,' Curiosity asked him, lounging with a shoulder to the wall.

Quatre sucked at bone-dry lips, trying to wet them. 'Your pardon, sir. Which school?'

'You said you were at school on Earth. Where? That accent. Still trying to place it.'

'Harrow,' Quatre murmured. 'In England.'

'Ah. Anglo. I hear it, now. Little blazers. Those boater hats.' He flicked at Quatre's tie, pulling it loose from the clip at his sternum. 'You'd be graduated now. Off to a business degree. Something suitably bourgeois. But for the war.'

The other two made their way out at Quatre's signal. They were chattering loudly, at ease with deception. Two men lost in the new construction of the offices. The swish and clunk of plastic sheeting betrayed them, but when one of the work crew dared to question, they only laughed it off, friends sneaking away for a fag, nothing at all to worry over.

This time the hand went through his open coat. Quatre knocked at his elbow, only barely restrained himself from a harder hit, but Curiosity was taller, heavier, and willing to go farther than Quatre to get what he wanted. He wrenched at Quatre's shirt, wrenched it free of his belt. They pressed, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, against the thin door. Quatre did not cry out, even as Curiosity ripped him out of his trousers, nails biting at the skin of his flank, the other palm clamping away his air, smothering his nose and mouth.

A whisper against the shell of his ear, as fingertips, almost tenderly, traced over the ridge of scar tissue on his hip.

'You looked better in blood,' Curiosity breathed on him. 'You were a mad dog on Lunar. Sogran may be fooled by you. I'm not.'

His heart skipped. But, strangely, his gut didn't. He was cold, not hot, even as sweat broke out on his forehead. 'That won't happen again,' he managed, muffled by Curiousity's hand. 'I was sick then.'

'Rabid.'

'Mad. Yes.' He couldn't get a full inhale. He was light-headed. 'I take pills. I can show you the prescription. They watch me swallow each one, every day before breakfast. You can join in the show.'

'Do you remember me? I thought not. You never reacted.' Curiosity followed the cresent of the scar, curled in toward his groin. 'Should I throw in my life with a broken man and his cracked porcelain doll? I should go to Khushrenada right now and tell him what you're up to. You remember the little room we made for you on Lunar? Where you pissed yourself and raved and clawed at the door and wept over your murdered papa. That will be a pleasant prison compared to what Khushrenada makes for you, when he finds out what you're planning.'

'Do what you want.'

'No protests? Don't you care what happens to you, Hibiscus?'

He didn't have the angle for it. He didn't have the rage for it. Not til the very second he heard that name, and then it surged up in him like lava erupting.

His knee connected with Curiosity's crotch. He helped it along with a strong yank to the man's shoulder, and carried his momentum along with a shove. They reeled from the door. Curiosity hit and knocked over the toolbench with a horrifically loud clatter. Quatre fell on him, hit him across the face. They scrabbled in a spill of sockets and drill bits and Curiosity knocked the box cutter away when he tried to grab it up, but Quatre succeeded in getting the heavy steel spanner, and sprayed them both with blood as he punched down with it, breaking Curiosity's nose. He raised it for another blow, but never landed it. Hands were on him, ripping him away. He struggled on his knees, dragged through sharp nails and tacks, stumbled to his feet. The wary stares of construction workers who'd come running at the noise of their brief combat were the only thing separating him from Curiosity, who moaned and demanded a cloth, swore viciously at him with an odd plugged gurgle. He spat a glob of dark red on the dusty ground.

'Do what you want,' Quatre said, and found himself not even breathing hard. 'There are consequences,' he said, and zipped his trousers, tucked in his shirt. The worker who held him back released him abruptly, so that he swayed. No-one directly watched him dress himself. But they had all seen, and they would report. Curiosity knew it, they all knew it. He was an ugly, defeated blotch, a stain of a man who'd miscalculated. And now he was the Rebellion's, because that was the kind of man a cracked porcelain doll could collect.

 

**

 

He lets Trowa walk him across base the first night he's reassigned from CommSec and put on Night Watch. He lets Trowa kiss him, in the shelter of the guard tower, but his mouth is cold and he can't make it move naturally when he tries to kiss back. He ducks Trowa's concern.

He stands on locked knees for eight hours, his rifle in hands cramped tight around the stock and barrell, eyes strained dry as he gazes out. He looks at the stars, for a while. He can't remember any more what it was like to be out amid them. They're only lights, places he'll never go back to, coordinates on a map.

'Don't forget about me,' Trowa says. He's said it a lot, lately. Trowa was the one who nearly died, nearly died at Quatre's hand, Trowa was the one who floated through Space injured and alone and woke with no memory of himself, confesses to blank walls about those strange days, holes that never quite fill in. But he says it to Quatre, implores, demands, orders. He never sounds hopeful. He holds Quatre by the wrists and leaves marks, shakes him. Walks away without looking back, and steeling himself.

Quatre gets a note from Sogran every few weeks, and does his duty. Their Rebellion is growing. Whether it will live long enough to fight, he can never quite decide.


	15. Zechs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

Zechs had observed with interest as his sister greeted Heero. If she knew, if she even cared these days, that Heero shared his bed sometimes, none of it showed on her face. The impulsive young woman who had crossed a globe and nearly conquered Space through sheer force of personality had largely vanished. She was cold, he thought, her face so smooth it was impossible to tell if she'd ever smiled.

Then again, Treize had said the same of Zechs. They were well paired, his sister and him.

And Heero pacing behind them, silent as only a man with enviable control over his body could be. Zechs walked as a man who didn't have the time to hide his intentions. His bootheels rapped out fierce echoes on the marble tile. The heavy drape of his formal cape whispered as it swayed. The harness for his weapon, hidden beneath his jacket, crinkled the linen of his shirt as it slid with each step.

'My office,' Relena murmured, her first words since greeting them at the drive. A liveried young man stepped smoothly to open it for them, holding the opaque glass door wide for their passage. Zechs glanced about politely, noting the décor only for the same painful attempts at modernisation that clashed across nations now, an odd and not truly successful attempt to pull the world out of its staid neo-colonial mire. Tufted velvet clashed with sleek plastic. Ornate gold and silver fought with severe greys and bright, unadorned whites.

Relena swept her skirt and sat at the desk. Perched there like a doll with her perfect hair, her immobile face. 'Marcell,' she asked the boy at the door. 'Tea, please, for my guests.'

Zechs took the armless chair positioned just to the left of the desk. It was as uncomfortable as it looked, a bad fit for a man his size, but it left his elbows unconstricted, access to his gun unobstructed. Heero accepted his cape, folding it carefully before retreating to blend into the wallpaper like a scowling potted palm.

'To the point,' Relena said then. 'I'll be accepting the position.'

'In Washington,' Zechs clarified, as if struggling to recall. A faint knowing sneer shaded Relena's eyes, but not a whit of it reached her tone.

'Chair of the Human Rights Committee. Secretary General Sanitwong is anxious for the HRC to produce actionable agenda.' Relena paused as her young man returned with the tea service. She smiled briefly and almost warmly as he set a cup-- square, Zechs noted, and clear glass, not the priceless china he had seen displayed in the halls below-- before her and poured. At her murmured behest he added milk and sugar for her. Zechs declined the sugar, prepared to accept the indignity of being presented directly with the glass, and amused that the boy instead took the caution of bowing over the cup and setting it on the small table beside Zechs' chair. Heero was the one who got the cup hand to hand. Heero immediately set it aside.

Zechs did not. He picked it up, pleased to find the glass cleverly insulated through an almost-invisible inner layer that left the impression of warmth on his fingers instead of burning. He blew steam from the lip. 'I've heard the Committee is considering flattering that absurd allegation of unprovoked attack in the Sinai.'

'Massacre,' Relena corrected tonelessly. 'Yes. I believe that's been under consideration.'

'You can use your position to persuade them otherwise.'

'Undoubtedly,' she answered. 'But I have no intention of doing so.'

He returned the cup to the table. 'Those allegations are lies. I led that engagement myself.'

'Then we'll call upon your witness and you can present your report to the Committee.'

'As if my word were merely another version of events, of no greater weight than whatever _witnesses_ you dig up.'

'Yes.'

He let none of his anger reach his face. He was sure of that, because Relena's breath, the almost invisible rise and fall of her chest beneath the silk at her breast, stayed calm and even. More importantly, Heero didn't react with that subtle bunching of muscles that called out a fight in the wind more surely than a dog raising its hackles. It was a minor triumph, but an important one. The Committee had the functional appearance of power, but none of the reality. They could condemn him in every newsprint on the six continents. The colonies would trumpet the inherent danger of a militarised force charged with peacekeeping and determined to follow rules of war. Treize would make some public apology. Zechs would no doubt have to eat a little crow in some humiliating arena, bow his head-- perhaps to the young woman who even now warned him it was coming. He would begrudge her that show of retaliation. But it mattered little enough in the end. He'd forced her out of Sanq. He'd won the long game, and she wouldn't have the political capital to do more than pinch his pride.

He put out a hand. Heero returned to his side, this time with the red dossier he'd been entrusted with guarding. He slipped the ribbon and handed it over, and stayed when Zechs made a small gesture ordering it. Zechs flipped the papers inside, and found the one he wanted. He let Heero walk it to the desk.

Relena read it in a glance, and folded her slim hands over it. 'I'm aware of them,' she said.

'Have you taken any action?'

'We're a fledgling nation,' she returned dryly. 'We don't have an intelligence complex except what's been loaned to us by our neighbours, and I frankly don't trust someone else's spies. They provide lists of names, every few months.'

'You've vetted those listed?'

'To the extent possible. No arrests.'

'Are they aware they're under surveillance?'

'I've had no report of it. I don't know if they would tell me.'

'We'll bring in our own people,' Heero interjected softly. 'Intelligence is security.'

Relena's eyes flicked to him. It seemed to take her a moment to respond, and she directed it at Zechs, not Heero. 'If you have people to bring, you'll be in a better position than I was. I've had a few of my father's people. Very few others I could trust.'

Zechs registered only belatedly that she meant not their father, but Darlian, a man who'd died without telling her who she was, or why he'd chosen to protect her identity. If she trusted that legacy, she was either a fool or desperately alone on a throne she'd been in no way prepared for. In time she might have cleaned house, learnt who was loyal and who was lost to self-interest. But she'd been bred to be a debutante. Treize had been a far better tutor, even if it was in his own interest to have the throne of Sanq secured and mutually bound to him.

'You did the best you could,' Zechs said, even meaning it-- more or less. Gravely she looked back at him, her mouth a thin grim line. She did not reply, and he did not press her.

He sipped his tea, and rose. 'I won't detain you from your schedule,' he said. 'But I'd like to meet with your council. I need a full debrief on Hibiscus.'

'Of course.' She didn't have to do more than raise her chin for the boy at the door to appear at her side. 'Marcell will take you to the Hall. They've been anticipating your arrival. I believe they are prepared to answer any questions you may have.'

'We'll see.' He inclined his head. 'Thank you, your Highness.'

'Princess no longer,' she said, her lips barely moving for that. The quiver of her chest fell still, but her face was regally frozen.

'Princess always,' he replied. 'Sanq will always need both of us. If not for that, I would have done it for Mother. You look... very much like her.'

He wasn't sure that affected her. His sister had become quite adept at hiding her emotions. But for the shiver of her eyelashes he wouldn't have thought her a living being.

'Thank you,' Relena said, only barely audible.

 

**

 

Heero propped his foot on the brick crenallation, his elbows on the overlook. The setting sun cast an orange glow on his dusky skin, made shadows of the planes of his face.

Zechs heaved a cleansing breath. 'I remember this place burning,' he said.

'I remember the world burning.' Heero said it without emotion, or so it seemed. After a full day of people strenuously avoiding intimacy, expression, connection, Heero's usual numbness rubbed him wrong. Raw. Zechs looked away.

'Did his Excellency give you a timeframe?' Heero asked, some minutes later, when the last edge of the sun had dipped beyond a purpling sea. The temperature was plummeting. Zechs had layer upon layer of Sanq's silly fashion to warm him. Heero stood immune to the cold in just his uniform shirt, but there was gooseflesh on his wrists, his neck.

'Spring,' Zechs said. 'You know Treize. He won't give me a day til he's damn well ready.'

'He knew you were coming here today?'

'I don't report my every move.'

'No. He has watchers who do that for you.'

Zechs made no effort to suppress his cynical and ungentlemanly snort. They danced around each other, trusted as much as two old friends who'd been through everything together could. Never out of eyesight.

That wouldn't change when he became King here. He'd be a different kind of threat, a more normal kind of threat, but a different kind of ally as well, and Treize was generous to his allies. For so long as their goals aligned, at any rate. No doubt Treize would find some way to spy on him still, but all in the normal course of business for a man concerned with a much larger playing ground.

'You'll stay with me,' he said.

Heero's head didn't turn. 'You may not get everything you want.'

'He can afford to let you go.'

'Keeping the Pilots together in Preventers--'

'Served its purpose. We had our Eden of unity. It's been three years. A Pilot in Sanq is a vote of confidence in peace. Treize will like that picture of unity, too.'

Heero's blunt lashes were lowered, when Zechs looked at him. Eyes on his hands, not on the breath-taking view beyond their balcony.

'You haven't asked me,' Heero mumbled.

Zechs turned his head stiffly away. 'Why should I ask for what's mine by right.'

No answer to that one. The silence was censure, he thought. Or hurt. He was never sure, with Heero.

He uncurled himself upright, shoved at the annoying cape at his shoulder. 'We'll leave early tomorrow,' he said. 'I want to check in at the Iberia Station on the way back. They claim they've picked up a high-level operative from Hibiscus. I want to talk to their people.'

Heero watched from the balcony as Zechs brushed through the sheer curtains over the open doors and returned to their suite. The roaring fire was welcome, as he warmed his hands briefly by the flames, but he didn't pause long. The secure laptop was booted and waiting. With a few taps and the brush of his thumb over the biometric lock, Zechs connected to his far-distant computer at Preventers Headquarters, loading his files remotely. The intelligence Relena had supplied had already been scanned and transferred. Heero had run a cross-check on the names.

He never heard Heero coming, but he felt the presence at his back. 'I didn't know Duo was working on this,' Heero said.

'Duo?'

'He submitted the draft plan.'

'And it was rejected.'

'What is he doing for the Field Marshal?'

'Heero, you're a dog with a bone on this. Drop it. Duo Maxwell is not and will never be your concern.'

'Are you jealous of him?' Heero asked, almost disinterested. He passed Zechs at the desk and dropped onto a chaise lounge. He picked at his fingernails with his switchblade, not even looking across the room.

Heero was many things-- maddening, and maddeningly tenacious-- but rarely subtle. Relena could have taught him better, if he'd ever be allowed alone in her presence. He would never be, and Zechs was the one who'd made that rule. Zechs said, 'Should a prince be jealous of a flunky?'

'If the flunky figures out how to eliminate the biggest threat you've faced since the war.'

Heero said _you_. Zechs heard it and wondered if Heero even realised what he'd let slip. Not we.

He sat on that in silence for so long that Heero looked up. Zechs dropped his eyes to the laptop, punching in commands. The clack of keys filled the quiet.

'Duo didn't think of anything we haven't,' he said finally. 'We knew it had to be someone connected to Preventers. He just took it to the logical conclusion. That it's someone with enough access to alter records and hide evidence.'

'Or someone who can order others to do it.'

'It's the same thing. Someone with rank. Someone with power, or at least connection to power.'

'He's smart.'

'Your prejudices are showing. It might not be a man.'

'Duo. He's smart. You never credit him for that.'

Zechs inhaled and held it, his heart thudding heavily. His voice sounded harsh, hurt his throat coming out. 'I am damn tired of every conversation looping back around to Duo.'

'I'm tired of not being the person you expect to see when you go looking,' Heero returned evenly. Then, before Zechs could do more than grind his teeth in fury, Heero switched topics, leaving him blinking. 'The Field Marshal wants you with him long enough to bring down the leaders. You bring him Hibiscus, you get your throne. And you'll prove Sanq won't be what it would have become under Relena. This isn't a weak Pacifist proto-state any more. You'll have a full share in the credit, because he'll want you seen.'

'I can follow the thought from one end to the other, Yuy,' he snapped.

'You'll be sharing credit with Duo if you don't move faster.' Heero flicked the blade closed and pocketed it. 'Treize won't have any problem putting you on camera together. A no-rank Preventer flunky right next to a prince and a General. He'll call it democracy. Meritocracy.'

And it would undermine Zechs right before he assumed the throne. Treize was a master of the lovingly crafted public image. It was no accident he surrounded himself with photogenic people, men and women of personal beauty as well as publishable strengths. Zechs in his red Specials uniform had been all but branded in the year before Operation Daybreak. Noin with her shining dark hair and level shoulders had been Instructor not least for her talent, but because a generation of boys had gazed at her with the admiration reserved for Platonic ideals. Anne had been the perfect ambassador to the Colonies for her soft brown hair, her gentle mouth, her elegant hands, even as Une had been the sexless, soulless assassin of nightmares, the perfect soldier from heel to fingertip. If Treize propped Duo Maxwell on the stage beside Zechs, Zechs didn't doubt whom most would see, but enough would be drawn to the strange and obviously symbolic braid, the quick dark grin that promised things unspoken, a grinning dealer of death. Treize was probably already designing a new uniform for the fantasy. They'd be matching chess pieces, the King in white and the knight in black.

He tapped a key, to prevent the screensaver from taking over. He was not a proficient in computers and never would be, but Treize had been adamant they learn together. The Alliance they suffered to replace had disdained the rise of technology. They had died in the failure. Treize was a lover of texture and finery and history, and his embrace of data and networks and mobile war would never be fulsome, but he knew what he was about. They'd brought down a world order with these tools. These tools would help them keep theirs safe from the next challenger.

He tapped a key, and tapped as well to the table displaying the results of the cross-check. There were only three names, and all their attached records.

'Which of us are you protecting?' he asked, tapping the first open. He used the rollermouse to scroll down, scanning for words of interest. Long experience in intell let him pick out the keys without conscious direction. 'Do you dole out such helpful advice to Duo? Or your work-out partner Treize?'

'You,' Heero said, answering the question asked, and not the question implied. Zechs glanced up, paused. Caught.

Heero rose. His thumb caught and released the top button of his shirt as he walked, silent, across the thick blue carpet. He pulled at the same button on Zechs', slipping it loose. He followed it with the next, and the next, his face as inscrutable as ever. When Zechs pushed him down by the shoulder, dragged him close by the neck, he said nothing, showed nothing. His mouth was hot and his tongue made wet patterns on Zechs' cock as he freed it from his trousers. Zechs curled his hands in Heero's hair, bent to press his lips to it as Heero's head bobbed. But as his groin tightened and he felt himself close, Heero crouched back, mouth slick and red, and his hand on Zechs' thigh was heavy and held him back.

'You have an opportunity to walk free,' Heero said. 'You do this for him and he'll owe you. Make it last.'

He was frustrated, and annoyed by the give of his own body, the distracting wave of his own dick, beginning to droop absent the attention of Heero's lips. 'Why?'

'Because you should have walked during the war.' Heero stilled him with a touch, with a look. 'Because if you had, everything would have been different.'

'Heero.' He shoved, and Heero caught himself on the leg of the table. Zechs was on his feet, stalking away. The heavy oak door of the bedroom slammed into the wall, denting the plaster as he passed through. He fought with the strap of his holster, threw the gun at the bed. It bounced to the floor. He followed it with shirt and jacket, stripped his open trousers, his smallclothes. A plush robe scented with sandalwood waited for him, and he wrenched it on one arm at a time. He knocked a vase of blue crystal from the bureau with an errant swat of his hand. It rattled on its way down, but didn't break. It rolled beneath the bed.

Heero was there to fetch it. He slid low on his knees, reaching a long arm down. He cradled it gently as he emerged. Slid to a seat, his shoulders dragging at the thick tapestry of the duvet. He dropped his head back to it, closing his eyes. The crystal made a slow revolution in his hands, turned over, over, over.

'Maybe nothing would have been different at all,' Zechs said.

'It would have changed everything.'

'You don't know that. Look at me. You don't know the hell you're talking about.'

Heero's face was dragged long and empty. He never looked. 'Neither do you, Zechs.'

 

**

 

Treize contemplated the outline Zechs had drawn, one fingertip circling the edge of the flat screen with its pixellated markings. 'You intrigue me,' he murmured. 'I take it then your trips abroad were fruitful.'

Sanq went unnamed. Zechs did not say it. Instead he answered, 'We've been patient. If we act now, we have a good chance of netting not just a few careless puppets. We can take out the leadership.'

'We are not sure of this. Three possibilities is two too many.'

'The one who runs is guilty.'

'It's certainly the quickest way to judge.' Treize brushed at the cowlick drooping ginger hair over his forehead. 'So we act.'

'We act. Scoop them up in one grab and sort it at our leisure. When has caution served us half so well as cold hard confidence?' Their hands lay near each other on the table. It would have been milimetres only to touch his thumb to Treize's small finger. 'We're ready.'

Treize's smile was like unfurling sails. There was a moment of forming, and then it was crisp and keen and it lit his eyes a bright vicious blue. 'I've missed a bit of good action,' he said. 'So. We take Hibiscus, then.'

'We take Hibiscus.'

Their hands touched. Treize initiated it. He turned Zechs' hand so the palm was up. His fingertips traced the lines across the palm. Settled on the throb of the pulse in his wrist. 'One last battle as my Lightning Count.'

'I thought I'd been promoted past Count by now.'

It was only a tease, uttered without forethought. But there was a sombre spark behind the glow of Treize's eyes. He nodded once, a slow down-up. 'Perkūnas. God of lightning. Thunder. Mountains. Rain. Sky.'

How he dared, he didn't know. It was suddenly so easy. The words were there, and only needed to be spoken. He licked his lips, and gave them voice.

'I'd settle for an earthly crown,' he said.

Treize covered his hand. 'And you shall have it, my friend.'


	16. Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

_Thursday_

'You are not this person.' The hand on his thigh stroked slowly, curling over the knee and familiar down his calf. It covered the arch of his foot and cradled, for a moment, warm skin on skin. 'Weak men let others make hard choices for them. You make decisions from strength. It's an indulgence even to come here asking for that affirmation. You already know.'

'You couldn't just affirm without being a dick,' Duo retorted, but he was weary, and it lacked the bite he'd meant to put in it. He tugged the pillow beneath his shoulders. The cotton felt cool against his sweating neck. He scraped at his hair, before another finger touched his cheek, carefully plying at the lock that caught the corner of his mouth. When Duo turned his head away, he found himself eye to eye with Zechs. They inhaled, in time, and then Zechs pressed their mouths together, langourously slow.

Duo had started it, so it was fair that it was Zechs who ended it. He sat up, dragging the sheet with him. One hand swept fine hair back into a graceful tail, a waterfall of white moonlight. He was a beautiful man, Duo thought, not for the first time, and not for the first time regretting his own penchant for falling for it. The arch of his spine and the silky flow of pale skin over taut muscle was an enchantment. Duo allowed himself to spellbound one more time.

Zechs wrapped himself in the robe draped over the settee. He settled there, legs crossed at the ankle, his big arms propped on the cushions behind him. The firelight cast tawny shadows on his face. Duo rolled to his side, idly picking at a loose thread in the duvet, aware of Zechs' eyes dragging over him. Say that for them. It had always been mutual.

'So you would suck it up,' he said. 'No questions.'

'Questions have a time and place.' Zechs found his abandoned wine. He finished it with a sip, and sat turning the glass by the thin stem delicately pinched between two fingers. 'Treize has never objected to questions. In the right--'

'Time and place. Got it.' The flush was leaving him. He felt cooler, and, in the wake of sex, more relaxed than he had in weeks. Months, probably. He curled his toes. 'You're really leaving,' he said then.

'You knew I would.' Around and around went the glass. The robe was a perfect turquoise, just a hint of green in the blue, bringing out the grey in Zechs' eyes. 'You advised it, as I recall.'

'It would have been smarter for both of us to go in for a memory wipe,' Duo muttered. 'You'll miss it. Maybe not Preventers, but the freedom. They'll watch you a hell of a lot closer in Sanq than they did when you were just Khushrenada's shadow.'

'Is that why you became his aide? To get out of the limelight?'

That was insightful. Partly true, even, a very small part. Duo traced a circle around a spot of wet on the sheet. 'I've always been good at local colour,' he said.

'And your little friend isn't. He put himself in this position.' Around and around, then dipping toward Duo in admonishment. 'Don't make a bad decision just to spite the world. That's weakness, too.'

Duo threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood. 'I think I've remembered why we stopped doing this. I'm going to use your shower. If I walk back like this everyone in a five-mile radius will know.'

'I thought we were just shadows no-one particularly minded. You don't want _him_ to know.'

'Do you?' Duo pointed out. 'There are moments to indulge and enjoy, my dear Zechs,' he sang, in his best imitation of Khushrenada's stern lecture, 'but I always know when to go home and wash my knickers.'

Zechs doubled over at the couch, laughing til he was weakly hiccoughing. 'God,' he gasped. 'I missed that.'

Duo bit down on the grin that threatened. He cleared his throat, instead, and turned for the bath. He slapped at switches til one of them produced light. He splashed his face from the sink before taking a deep breath and looking at himself in the mirror. Yeah. He ran the water til it heated, and reached for the shaving kit. He lathered and patted at his chin and the uneven growth of stubble on his cheeks. He'd never be in danger of a beard, but he didn't want Khushrenada making a comment about his appearance. Once had been plenty humiliating. He found just a straight blade in the kit. He stroked a thumb over the pearl handle. It was a pretty piece, an antique, maybe. He felt the etching near the silver hinge, and flipped it.

_To H._

He stripped the lather from his face with a towel and flung it toward the laundry. His clothes were where he'd dropped them, boxers and trousers and his shirt, sporting some wrinkles, his tie. He buttoned on his jacket. Zechs watched him dress, a smile that was lazy with sleep on his lips. That vanished, when Duo made his parting-- sally. Apology. He didn't know, and he didn't intend to stay to make it right.

'Tell Heero I said hey,' he said, and left.

 

**

 

_Wednesday_

'Then we're all in agreement?'

Zechs was the first to nod. Khushrenada conducted the ballot fairly, however, giving each man and woman time to consider their answer, and marking each individually on his page. The distinctive scratch of his pencil in the columns was strangely reassuring, Duo thought, and noted who straightened in their seats, chins high when Khushrenada recorded their vote.

'The count is eighteen aye, seven nay,' Khushrenada announced quietly. 'The ayes have it.' He placed his pencil aside, aligning it perfectly with the pad. 'To those of you who object, I offer the following in compromise. Elect one of your number to join me in executing the operation.'

The nays shared long looks. Noin was the one who stood. 'I volunteer,' she said. 'Thank you, Field Marshal, but I renew my protest about arresting suspects without further proof of culpability. We're talking about some forty people just in Preventers. Ten at this base alone.'

'Arrest and incarceration can be undone,' Khushrenada replied. 'Losing the advantage cannot. If they're truly uninvolved they will be released. If they do have a connection to Hibiscus, however, better that we ascertain the extent of it. Preventers will never be free from politics, but we should be self-aware when it threatens our neutrality.'

Noin didn't have a quick answer for that one. She sat. The old man next to her leant near to whisper. She shook her head, and didn't speak again.

Duo was the only aide with clearance for such a high-level meeting, and consequently he was the only one ranked lowly enough to perform clean-up after it. He stacked abandoned coffee mugs, dumped out the samovars, wiped crumbs off the table, pushed in chairs. Gathered up the bits of scrap paper left behind. Those he carried with him up the stairs. Bancroft was in the office they were sharing for another three days, on the phone and taking a dictation. Duo nodded to him as he passed. He knocked at the door separating their office from Khushrenada's, listening for the murmur on the other side of it that bade him enter.

Khushrenada stood at the window, gazing out at the early morning snow with a frown. 'It's cold in here,' Duo said. 'You want me to fiddle with the boiler?'

'It's of no moment.' Khushrenada gave himself an all-over shake, and took his chair at the desk. 'Anything enlightening?'

Duo handed over the scraps. 'Nothing all that juicy. Nasser's kind of a decent artist, though.' He showed Khushrenada the sketch of a bird he'd found at the General's placemat. 'Pretty.'

'Mm.' Khushrenada slumped back in his chair, joining his hands over his flat belly. He turned his head toward the computer screen, but his eyes didn't focus on it. Duo helpfully moved his eyeglasses near. Khushrenada thanked him absently, but didn't don them. Ah. Thinking Deeply Mode.

'Do you always do that?' Duo asked him, turning away to check on the fire. It was burning merrily, recently refreshed. Duo angled the brass screen to funnel the heat more directly into the room, and busied himself picking up the remains of a quickly eaten breakfast as well. 'Have them vote before you tell them what you're going to have them do anyway.'

'Certain democratic functions are necessary,' Khushrenada said. 'Happily, I've never had my will tested. That day is probably nearer and nearer. No one vote tells me anything earthshaking about the mood of my commanders; two or three dozen start to reveal interesting tells.'

'If you played poker instead of chess, you might get the same results.'

'How common,' the Field Marshal answered lightly. Duo smiled despite himself.

'I haven't seen Noin in a while,' he said then. 'Why'd you move her to Space? She used to be glued to Relena Peacecraft's ass.'

'They call her La Lupa,' Khushrenada mused. 'Did you know that? Charming _petit nom d'amour_.' With a sigh, Khushrenada sat up straight and returned to his work. The glasses went on, the hands arched in readiness over the keyboard. 'Lucrezia is a weather-vane. She shows me which way the wind will blow. She's only useful near the gathering storm, however, and Sanq is no longer an issue.'

'Sure of that, are you?'

'No longer the most pressing issue,' Khushrenada corrected himself. The dial-up connection whirred and beeped, and Khushrenada pulled a long face. He flipped open his padfolio and wrote by hand as he waited.

'So the pressing issue is Hibiscus?'

'Hibiscus is merely the first act. There will be others, better organised, better armed.' He checked, but the computer resumed its beeps the moment it had his attention. He sighed. 'Nor is this the eradication of Hibiscus. We'd be extraordinarily lucky to get them in one fell swoop. It didn't work with the Alliance, and we had far greater tactical advantage there, not to mention an entrenched and transparent enemy force. Rooting out a Resistance is an impossible dream. But it serves a certain function, to move against them early. We are, after all, Preventers. We ought to make some pretence of prevention.'

'Well that's enlightening.' Duo tidied the mess of papers by the fire, and poured a fizzy water at the bar. 'You want something stronger? It's happy hour somewhere.'

'Vodka.' Khushrenada tilted his head back, eyes closing. 'No,' he said. 'The water is fine.'

'Okay.' Duo dropped in a lime twist and poured himself a glass, too, and carried them back to the desk. 'So why do I get the feeling you're kind of okay with Hibiscus lingering around the edges?'

'The enemy you know, Mr Maxwell.'

'As long as the enemy you know is occasionally rounded up and its leadership shot in dank cellars across Eurasia.'

Khushrenada toasted him with the glass. 'Spot-on.'

'But the leadership is hiding here in Preventers. Right in the, whatever, the so-oul.' He dragged the word out, but Khushrenada didn't bite the bait, absorbed in his drink. 'Soul of this spiffy organisation you've made, rising phoenix-like out of the ashes of, like, war, I guess.' He swirled his glass, watching the bubbles fizzle out. 'Who's watching him now?'

'No-one you'd be familiar with. No-one he's familiar with.'

'So he doesn't know the trap's closing in.'

'It would hardly work if he did.'

'You don't see the benefit of giving him a chance to come in voluntarily? He might be biding time until he has enough to bring to you.'

'I'm not on his schedule.'

'But you'll be on Zechs'? He wants to ride off to Sanq so you cram a sting into a long weekend to accommodate him?'

Khushrenada considered him. 'Mr Maxwell, I've done you a disservice, allowing you to blather at me with such unrepentant informality. You are a soldier in my service. You will do as ordered.'

'I thought we were Preventers now,' Duo said. 'Not soldiers.'

'Mr Maxwell.' Khushrenada's face was a mystery, suddenly, and that didn't seem like a good thing. He'd be one hell of a poker player. Duo did what deer and smart little boys did, and stood still for it, waiting for the predator to pass him over.

'You are not required to agree or disagree,' Khushrenada said, almost gently. 'Might I point out, however, that this is by far the kinder way to fight them. The innocent will be protected. And the weak.'

Oh, it was on the tip of his tongue. The words were just there, unsummoned, like blood on his gums. He had to physically swallow them back. He had to turn his back, just to compose his face. And Khushrenada knew, the motherfucking bastard actually sat there and told him it was kinder to imprison them in Preventers, _kinder_ to put them on camera so the whole world knew the Gundam Pilots had been tamed and brought into the fold, _kinder_. A kinder way to dispense their fates like it was all pre-fucking destined. Tell that to Chang Wufei, dead before he could be dishonoured.

He had to balance himself with a hand on the back of the chair by the hearth. He was only faint a moment, the rush of his own impotent rage. He made himself keep moving. Dusted the chair like he'd meant to all along, and walked out of the room, back to his own office. Bancroft took one look at his face and made himself scarce. Duo sat, his chair that faced a fucking blank wall, and he drank the water that was somehow still in his hand, and he breathed. He breathed, and then he took all of it, every last iota of it, and he locked it away.

He'd need it someday. Not today.

 

**

 

_Tuesday_

'Keys to the utility closet,' Bancroft said. He was winding down on the number of keys left, happily; Duo was finding it hard to keep paying attention. Or, more precisely, to keep up the appearance of paying attention. He'd stopped actively listening sometime after Bancroft had run him through the procedures for the classified safe.

'Programmed numbers on the phone,' Bancroft droned on. 'The black keys here are all base command stations. The red keys are as follows: base medical, base technical assistance, base car service, base--'

Duo pushed at the key ring, fanning the dozen or so sets into a precise circle. 'Heard you're getting married,' he said. 'Congrats.'

Bancroft paused. He reached left, for his tea mug. He sipped once and returned it to the coaster. 'Thank you. You have a sweetheart?'

'Me? No.' Duo cupped a hand over his mouth. 'I'm kinda young,' he stage-whispered.

'Oh. Yes, I suppose so.'

'We discourage the premarital sexytimes up in the Colonies. Sort of a population control issue. Only so many seats on the bus, so to speak.'

'I didn't know that,' Bancroft said politely.

'Yeah.' Duo dropped his chin into his hand, playing with the keys. 'Then again, a lot more room now that so many of us died during the war. Convenient, wot.'

The long pause was sort of excruciating. Which more or less defined the last two days of cramming a thousand protocols into his brain. He would be the switchboard operator of the Sphere's secrets. If he ever learnt the right bows, how to set out silverware, and how to select expensive wine. Duo was a fast learner, but not a patient one.

A beep from the computer interrupted his signature mix of awkward candour and gloomy boredom. Bancroft wheeled about his chair and pulled up to the desk, typing in his login code to access the alert system. 'Here, come watch this,' he said. Duo stood and shuffled a few steps left to join him, peering down at the screen. 'This is the quarter-hour intell dump. You'll check for anything MEO--'

'MEO?'

'Marshal's Eyes Only. That goes to the Field Marshal immediately, no matter what he's doing. Not as frequent these days, every three or four weeks, perhaps. Second scan is for HLI, High-Level Intell. That goes to the Field Marshal, every General, Lieutenant General, and Major General in the Corps. U is for Urgent, TS is Time Sensitive, CUI is Controlled but Unclassified. His Excellency receives the same dump but he's not always at his computer station. You knock twice on the door and go in without waiting. Every other time you want to go in, you knock once and wait for permission.'

'Oh. I'm not sure how I've been knocking.'

'You do a sort of two and a half. A little lacking in confidence, if you don't mind my saying.'

Duo pulled a grin for that. 'Yeah.' He scanned the list of incoming, and read over Bancroft's shoulder as he wrote. 'HBS is what?'

'Hibiscus.' Bancroft scratched out a note in precise block letters and tore the page from the perforations. 'And it's TS. Take this in.'

'Every hour? What if it's immediate action?'

'That's what the phone is for. So don't be away from your desk for long.'

The small cramped office he'd be occupying for the immediate future was-- he was of the opinion-- probably an abandoned coat cupboard, or maybe a converted commode, all the old plumbing ripped out. There were no windows, the light was overly bright, and the sole comfort was a dilapidated green satin sofa that had been left indifferently in one corner and apparently served as a free-form filing cabinet. There was an electric heater under the desk strung along the oldest cable Duo had ever seen, and a fan shanghaied into a light socket, and despite both of those measures the exact centre of the room was frigid and airless. The door Duo was about to pass was strung with just-returned dry-cleaning; the Field Marshal required a baker's dozen changes of clothing available at any moment, since he couldn't count on getting back to his quarters, wherever those were. Duo still hadn't been informed, and he had a growing suspicion that Khushrenada never slept.

He knocked, twice. With confidence. Khushrenada was seated behind his own desk, typing rapidly as he listened to a playback. That was paused, before Duo could hear exactly what it was. 'The quarter-hour,' Duo began, but Khushrenada was already putting out a hand. Duo deposited the paper.

A moment later Khushrenada removed his glasses and rose, tugging his uniform coat into place. 'Adrian,' he called, and Duo shifted left to accommodate Bancroft joining them. 'This has been confirmed?' Khushrenada questioned.

'The Big Three and Kangaroo.'

'Now I know I didn't sleep through those codes,' Duo muttered.

Khushrenada glanced up as Bancroft, shocked at his impertinence, took a wide step out of firing range. But Khushrenada only grinned, faintly. 'My personal codes,' he replied. 'As my aide you'll be called upon to provide certain communications in unfriendly territory. We'll draft our own codes, so don't worry about learning Adrian's.'

'You define your own empty office as unfriendly territory?'

'Everything but the inside of my own head, Mr Maxwell, and sometimes I don't even trust that.' Khushrenada fed the paper to his fire. 'Put his call directly through.'

'Sure. Whose?'

'General Merquise,' Bancroft said. 'It will go to Line 2, your Excellency. Maxwell, the printer.'

He fetched. He was doing a lot of that. The printer was spewing out dozens of pages, and he passed the time waiting for it to finish by stripping the edges and separating all the sheets. Khushrenada was awaiting the result, hand already extended. Duo provided it with a mocking little bow.

'Mind the desk,' Bancroft reminded him, sotto voce. 'You had two go to message while you were in here. Transcribe them. When General Merquise rings in, full-transfer the call, no conference bypass.'

'No, stay,' Khushrenada said. He was scanning rapidly, and paused to take up his pen, annotating the printouts. 'Adrian, your eyes on this, please. You as well, Mr Maxwell. Just be ready for the call when it comes.'

Bancroft got the pages first. He read, near-sightedly holding the pages under his nose. He glanced up at Duo, once, lips parting as if he were going to say something. He didn't speak, though, and then he paid extra concentration to the task of reading. Duo noted that. And noted where on the page he'd been looking when it happened. When he got his turn, next, he only skimmed, letting the keywords jump out at him.

And almost missed it, doing that. The name only appeared once on the page. In the whole document. He double-checked, triple.

The phone rang. Bancroft waited on him, through the first ring. It didn't occur to Duo he was supposed to do anything about that, til Bancroft gave up on him and rose. Duo remembered himself in a rush, and brushed past him. He got the call by the third ring, crammed the receiver to his ear. 'Transferring,' he said.

_'Duo?'_

'Uh, yeah.' Zechs. He knew that voice. 'Uh, sorry, I'm trying to transfer the call--'

_'Don't bother. Tell him I'm on my way to Barracks 9. We caught one of them making a run to warn the others. We missed a few sympathisers, it seems. We're moving to quarantine.'_

Barracks 9. Barracks 9. He couldn't remember where the others were assigned. 'I'll tell him. Where, uh, where are you located.'

He started badly when he felt a presence behind him. Looming over his shoulder, then beside him, propping his long limbs on Duo's desk. Khushrenada nodded at the phone. 'On speaker, please,' he said.

Duo swallowed. He hit the button. Mid-word Zechs' smooth basso filled the small office. _'--site and cozy with Target 2,'_ he was saying.

Khushrenada nodded to himself. 'A thought, my friend,' he told the other man. 'Pick up one or two of our spies, tonight, and let it be seen. We have an opportunity before us. An arrest will burnish credentials in the movement. That young man who's been so useful, what's his name?'

_'You refer to Kurt? He's a bit over-eager, don't you think?'_

'Over-eager is of more use than reluctance. Get him in custody now; a little authenticity in his performance will help matters. Ring me again when it's done. I want his full report.'

 _'If that's what you want, you'll have it.'_ There was a pause of muffled discussion. _'We're at the ready,'_ Zechs said. _'Til later, old friend.'_

'Three targets,' Duo said. He hung up the call, and discovered he was still holding the printer papers. He surrendered them to the burn bag beneath his desk. 'Balashov is on your frequent guest list. He's got the clearance to waltz in for dinner any time he wants.'

'He was a mentor to my father in St Petersburg. Where he ran a Resistance cell that operated long before I was born.'

'Shu's only a staff sergeant.' Duo scraped his teeth along his lip. 'Winner. Is that a code?'

'Not code,' Khushrenada said. He crossed his arms, loosely hugging his chest. His face was calm, lips just slightly pursed, as though they were engaged in a discussion of only mild interest. 'Quatre Winner,' he said.

'He's—' He couldn't see the move. He couldn't see the board. 'He's part of Hibiscus?'

'Rather more than that.'

'You never told me,' he said. 'You had me write plans with-- was that even real intell?'

'Very real.' Khushrenada nodded toward the burn bag at their feet. 'I did find it odd that you overlooked the power of symbology. You were quite dismissive of their communications network. Reluctance to admit to something that was unsuccessful for your own compatriots?'

'Symbology.' Bancroft was watching him beneath lowered lashes at the door. Khushrenada was putting on a grand show of this casual conversation, and he flared, realising that. 'A fucking Gundam Pilot,' Duo said. 'He's Hibiscus.'

'So we strongly believe. He's watched. He's been watched since we first brought you here. He's bright, educated. Good family. Young. I've suspected from the beginning that it would be him. They watched me for the same reasons, once, and they were correct. I wasn't quite so angelic in recordings.'

'Field Marshal.' Duo was not a stupid man. He was not a stupid man, but he stood there and made a stupid argument, and Khushrenada just patiently waited him out. 'He wouldn't. He's not-- it would be unbelievably naïve to get involved with that-- here. Anywhere. Of course he knows he's watched, we all know we're watched, and he wouldn't-- that's an unbelievable risk. And not just to himself, he wouldn't risk-- others.'

'Barton, you mean? No, I shouldn't think so. But what would he risk _for_ Barton?' Khushrenada tilted his head. The harsh overlight wasn't kind, turned him pinky-pale and orange-haired, eyes washed out, like a cat unblinking. 'This is by no means the eradication of Hibiscus, merely the first move in a long cold war. A Gundam Pilot put himself in the middle of it, and he did it from the heart of Preventers. That bears a little further examination.'

'Examination?' Duo latched onto that. 'You would know if he was in on it. How could you not know.'

'It may not be him,' Bancroft contributed softly. 'It would be extraordinarily foolish. Or desperate.'

'There is video and voice recording,' Khushrenada said. 'Or so we have been told. A ghost presence, both clearnet and darknet. Sites which are created and destroyed by ghost codes, data which bounces from server to server leaving only traces, never content which can be reconstructed. He claims to be Gundam Pilot Oh-Four, Quatre Winner. It may not be true. It would be a convenient fiction. But it may be true, and, if it is, it may be a truth better left in the open where it can be--'

'Bait,' Duo said.

Khushrenada nodded. 'I don't have time for an existential crisis,' he said, bluntly but not unkindly. He just sat there in repose, waiting on him to bounce one way or the other. Watching him. 'So tell me now if you feel this requires too much of you.'

'You'd never trust me again.'

'Indeed. But it is a choice you can make, if you feel you must.'

'This is another test. This one of your fucked up tests.'

'Maxwell,' Bancroft barked, and went ignored.

'Of course it is,' Khushrenada agreed. 'We'll never stop testing each other, Mr Maxwell, I thought we'd been quite explicit about that. And this test is rather deadlier than a random assassination attempt. You made that decision on the fly and you made it out of self-interest. What I require of you now is a premeditated agreement that we share a vision of the future. Betrayal is a small and ultimately unimportant task in this great construction. You'll do it today, you'll do it again, you'll betray me when the day comes, but in service of something greater than a paltry short-sighted gain. So say yes, Mr Maxwell. I won't hurt him very badly, and this is necessary.'

Duo bit his cheek til he tasted blood. 'You're a son of a bitch,' he said, when he felt he could speak evenly.

'Yes,' Khushrenada said.

'Maxwell!' Bancroft had a bellow on him that rivalled any drill sergeant, and Duo damn near saluted out of instinct. It broke his stare with Khushrenada, anyway, and, like that, the spell was over.

'Standing by for General Merquise's next transmission,' he said, and sat in his chair. 'Do you want tea timed for your next intell dump?'

'Thank you,' Khushrenada said, and left him. Bancroft followed him in, and shut Duo out all in the doing. It plunged him into silence, alone with the whir of the fucking useless fan.

His throat was sore. He forced himself to swallow anyway.

 

**

 

_Monday_

'I heard he promoted you,' Zechs said. 'Takes seeing it for myself.'

'Uh-huh.' Duo propped the phone receiver between ear and shoulder. 'Kinda busy. Work stuff, you know. For the Field Marshal.'

'Duo.' Zechs took the receiver from him. It was small in his large hand, slapped lightly against the other palm. 'I suppose this is the natural endpoint of his interest in you. Keeping you close to hand. Nuturing your talent.'

'Who wouldn't want to spend all day, every day with me? I'm that loveable, me.'

Mutely Zechs returned him the receiver. Their fingers brushed, as he took it.

'Where's Heero?' Duo asked then. 'He's usually two feet behind you.'

'On assignment. Buenos Aires.'

'I saw his papers. You're taking him to Sanq.'

'He'll stay with Preventers.' Zechs gazed off over Duo's head. 'Treize drives a hard bargain. Always has. He keeps Heero in his pocket.'

'You keep him in your bed.'

One more casual bit of insolence slung at a man who'd once claimed Duo's mouth was the only useful part of him. Zechs seized him by the chin. The man was fast, and his grip was like iron. Duo froze.

'The day is going to come when Treize tires of you,' he said, his voice soft and deadly. 'He likes to play this game of mentorship. You'll last a year, maybe two. He'll find some quiet corner to stash you. He likes to marry them off, but you're no good for that, are you? Too Colonial. Too used. No, he'll send you off to some foreign engagement, a posting at the edge of a hostile zone. Nairobi, or D Area, maybe, somewhere they shoot first and never question your loyalties. You don't have a Gundam anymore, Duo. What an ignominious end that will be.'

Anything could have happened in that moment. Bancroft could have wandered in from packing his papers. Khushrenada was on the other side of a door that wasn't very thick, just a sheet of wood and some hammered gilt. Duo could have turned in some neat violence of his own. It had been a while, but he'd always known how to hit-- low, and hard. He was curling his fist to do it, even.

Instead, Zechs let him go. And then took hold of him again, and his thumb drew a line down Duo's neck, his forefinger sliding the line of Duo's jaw, to brush over the tender spot behind his ear. And Duo shivered.

'From someone who's been there,' Zechs said. He let go. 'If you ever need to talk, at least you know I'll listen. I owe that much.'

The fingers of his hand were flat on the desk. He stared at them. He made himself make that fist, finally, he made it happen, but it was like someone else's hand, someone else's hurt. He nodded.

'Tell him we're ready,' Zechs said then. 'He'll know what it means.' He didn't add a good-bye. They'd never been much for that, either of them. Duo made a point of not watching him go.


	17. First Interlude: Treize and Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Please take my umbrella, your Excellency.'

'No, no,' Treize brushed him off. 'It's only a drizzle. I can stand a little wet weather.' But he did pop his collar, and secured his greatcoat a little tighter about him. The rain was not all that bothersome, but the wind cut deeply in the early morning.

'At least some coffee, then, sir.'

'Now that offer I will accept.' Treize took the cup and sipped, taking a moment to appreciate the steam off the pleasantly bitter roast. He returned it a moment later, gesturing for the agent to share it around. 'It's Corporal Sneed, isn't it? Your wife is pregnant?'

Sneed grinned abashedly. 'Four weeks ago, sir. A girl.'

'A daughter.' Treize removed his left glove to shake hands with the young man. 'A daughter, that's quite a gift. Congratulations. Carlton, yes? And what did you name your daughter?'

'Birdie,' Sneed answered. His partner snickered, and Sneed elbowed him. 'It's a family name. We'll call her Annette, sir.'

'Honouring our heritage is important,' Treize replied sagely, since it would be expected. The coffee came back around to him, and he took the final sip before returning it. They were gathering notice from the morning traffic, agents released from their barracks for breakfast headed toward the mess, others off to early shifts about the base. They'd made sure the janitorial staff had finished their dawn sweep and moved on, but the lawn servicemen, quietly directed to focus on tasks a good hundred yards from any exit, were staring and whispering. Treize wiped a spit of rain from his cheek. 'But Annette will keep her out of trouble with her schoolfellows,' he added. 'And for God's sake, don't let the poor thing play badminton.'

'Or golf,' Sergeant Thorne offered. Treize grinned.

'Field Marshal.' Zechs jogged ahead of the group he led, his hood falling back as he joined them. The Preventers near Treize parted ways for him, politely withdrawing a few yards to provide them privacy. Zechs was in high colour this morning, his pale hair pressed damply to his flushed cheeks. His eyes were a bright icy blue. 'We're ready,' he confirmed. 'The building is surrounded. If we wait much longer, we won't be picking our moment.'

'Then by all means, let's pick it.' Treize consulted his watch. 'A wager, old friend?'

Zechs raised a brow. 'I'm game,' he said, a vicious smile tilting up the edges of his mouth. 'Terms?'

'Over half an hour, and I send you off to Sanq with the most excruciating public parade I can manage. Ticker tape and a full brass band included.'

Zechs winced. 'Under,' he countered, unclipping his gun holster with a precise snap. 'And you stand on your grand steps, rain or shine, waving a white lace kerchief in farewell.'

Treize let that prompt him into a rare guffaw. They shook on it, and Zechs took off apace, waving his men after him. Treize allowed himself another chuckle. It was a good day for it.

 

**

 

'There you are.' Quatre turned aside from his path, crunching across the gravel slowly. 'Where've you been hiding?'

Ralph had a cigarette at his lips, the ashy tip breaking off when he flicked it aside. He used the butt to light a fresh one from over his ear. 'You smoke?' he asked, grinding out the used fag. He tossed it away to the water over the sewer wall. It sizzled, just a moment.

Quatre sat slowly beside him, dropping his legs over the wall. 'No,' he said. 'Ralph. Your face. Who hit you?'

'Don't ask a question like that if you're not planning on helping, boyo.' The tip of the new cigarette flared bright red. 'We're not really friends, though, are we.'

Quatre rubbed at a worn seam on his trouser. It was a rhetorical question. There was no way to answer it with dignity. 'Come get ice,' he murmured finally. 'For the swelling.' Ralph didn't answer, and Quatre put a hand on him. It was the first time he'd voluntarily touched the other man, and Ralph stilled, head turning to face him fully. Quatre covered his hand gently.

Ralph wet his lips. He sucked hard on the cigarette, and blew a cloud of smoke out into the damp chill of a wet January morning. 'They asked questions about you.'

'Me?'

'Why I used your login and password at ComSec.'

'Ralph.' He grimaced a useless apology. 'Would it help if I came forward?'

The words just came out. As if it were possible. As if it wouldn't expose-- everything. He really was a walking death wish.

Ralph didn't ask for it, anyway. Indeed, he immediately shook his head. 'Protect yourself,' he said. 'If we were only talking suspension they wouldn't be asking questions with their fists. They're after something big. And I think they're willing to make it up if it doesn't exist.' He expelled another breath of smoke. 'I told them it was a trade. For the chocolate. In case they try to compare our stories.'

'Thank you,' Quatre said, subdued. Distracted. His gut had been on edge since the day he'd debarked at Luxembourg, free of cuffs and more fully a prisoner than at any other time in his life. His gut was screaming at him now. He'd been waiting for this.

Ralph was very carefully not looking at him, now. In an indistinct mumble, he said, 'If you've got anyone to warn, warn 'em.'

'Quatre.'

They were in public, though sheltered by the brick wall that cordoned off the smokers' patio. Still Quatre stiffened, sheer surprise at hearing his given name-- only two people used it, and it wasn't Trowa who'd just called out. It was Duo Maxwell.

Duo approached them with a wary tilt of his shoulders. It wasn't Quatre he watched; it was Ralph, who stared back at him with surprise. Ralph recovered himself with a cough, and produced the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. 'You wanna fag?' he asked Duo, offering it across the distance.

'Can I help you, Agent?' Quatre asked politely, distantly, trying to elide the danger of the situation. 'We were just about to go in for breakfast.'

'I need to talk to you.' Duo broke his gaze with a quick glance at Quatre. 'There's something happening that I need to talk to you, uh, about, before it, uh. Happens.'

They hadn't had a private word in more than two years. Hadn't so much as called each other by name since the night Duo had pressed him close, clasped both his hands in a hard grip and wished him luck in battle. He'd watched Duo go down amid the wreckage of Libra hours later and hadn't known if he'd lived or died til Luxembourg. Quatre was flat-footed, at a loss for words. He didn't know how to react to the urgency, the suddenness of something all reason told him should never happen again.

Ralph heard it first, head turning sharply. 'Thunder?'

'Quatre,' Duo said.

The second time Quatre knew it for what it was. Gunshot. Coming from the direction of the officers' housing.

Duo yanked him by the arm, swinging him round when he tried to go. Quatre shook him off. Ralph blocked him, then, and Quatre ran for it. He heard Duo cursing behind him, heard Ralph say something low and heated, and then he was round the corner and sprinting. He wasn't the only one who'd recognised that sound, and dozens were headed toward it. Smaller, lighter, and well-trained after months of Sogran's insistence that he beat every challenge they set him pushed Quatre harder and faster than his fellow agents. He wove and dodged and found himself outpacing them.

For all the good it did. It was a run of perhaps five minutes, time he was both painfully aware of and frantically unable to measure, but by the time he arrived he knew he'd gone in exactly the wrong direction. Duo had tried to warn him, and he'd done it anyway. He slowed on shaking legs, lungs burning as he bent double, wiped his sweat with an arm. He looked up to see Field Marshal Khushrenada watching him across the quad.

 

**

 

'Clear this crowd!' Corporal Sneed bellowed. He had an impressive parade-grounds roar, and Preventers well across the quad stopped in their tracks to salute. Treize allowed it to produce quiet, but stopped him when he made to repeat himself. He wanted an audience; just not a disruptive one.

The timing was good. Zechs had planned carefully, had blocked exits, had chosen the early morning to catch their prey at baths, unaware and unwary. Treize checked his watch. Fifteen minutes. Someone had run, clearly. That gunshot had been a warning, the first time. The second had been deadly earnest, he was sure, and awaited confirmation of what his gut knew but still, after all these years, wanted convincing of: Zechs fired first and he never went down. Never.

It was, then, a palpable relief to see the march that left the front lobby. Zechs was shoving a man along with a fist in his collar. The exercise had whipped high colour into his cheeks. He was a tall, avenging god, fierce in his dark grey duster and head held high. Treize congratulated himself on having anticipated correctly. His cameraman, unobtrusively stationed in the shade of a large elm, was rolling live.

They'd taken seven men, overall. Four more than planned. They'd scared a few birds out of the nest, then. Men who'd seen a desperate situation and acted rashly were easily netted. The smarter ones, the cautious ones, they wouldn't reveal themselves so easily.

Even with provocation. Quatre Winner had made it to the scene. He hadn't been in the officers' quarters-- Treize had made sure of that before he'd given the all-clear. There were ways and then there were ways to handle certain kinds of obstacles, and Treize was nothing if not flexible in his approach.

Ah. And Duo Maxwell, making his appearance shortly after. If Treize was determined to be flexible, then Maxwell would try him to his limits. Of course. Maxwell's appearance, trotting in after his friend and broadcasting moral compromise all over the place, both vexed Treize and validated his selection of that particular young man. Maxwell might have hated the choice, but he'd made it. Anything he did now was clean-up, and sloppy at that. Well, but he was young, and time would mend that as it did most things.

Sneed's men spread wide, securely encircling the quad and then tightening the ring. The prisoners were a miserable bunch, one even weeping openly as he was shoved to his knees on the wet grass. Treize let the scene play out, giving them time to mill, to stew, to dread. To reveal by their unspoken dynamic secrets that would be more readily defended once they were separated in interrogation cells. The one who wept was not terrified; he was angry. And the one he was angry at stood over him, lip curled in disgust, staring into the middle distance as if preparing himself for death. That, Treize decided, that might have to be a wish he granted sooner than not.

He gestured to Zechs, who lifted his chin attentively though he never let loose the struggling man he held. 'The Major,' Treize murmured, knowing Zechs would match his mind.

Despite the distance between them Zechs took his meaning immediately. 'On your knees,' Treize heard him order, and most went, some helped along by their captors. It was a masterful command, readily separating the chaff from the wheat. The tallest of their number, the shark-eyed Major Sogran, refused to bow. He wavered when shoved and kept to his feet, bare legs planted wide in the grass, dignified even in a loose bathrobe that exposed his rumpled smallclothes and tangled his cuffed arms. And indeed Sogran was far more collected than that. He didn't look once, not even in the direction, of the boy who stared, face frozen between horror and anticipation. Yes. Treize could count on Sogran to play his part well, to the end.

Zechs put himself eye-to-eye with the Major. They were of a height, nearly, Sogran just the little taller, but Zechs by far the more intimidating, deadly in his steely earnest. Zechs rested one hand on his pistol at his hip, and said, clearly audible though he spoke softly, 'I told you to kneel.'

Open defiance. It wouldn't serve Zechs well, past a certain point, and Treize had already achieved the theatricality he wanted for this event. Time to step in and conduct the drama.

It was terribly silent as he crossed the quad. Maxwell was in heated whispering with Quatre Winner, who appeared to be alone on some ghostly plane, eyes riveted vacantly. Zechs stood aside for him, and Treize removed his gloves, tucking them into his belt. He took his time adjusting the lay, tugging at his cuffs, brushing a bit of rain from his nose. Sogran stared him grimly down.

'A grey morning for it,' Treize said at last.

Sogran's sharp chin turned up just a bit, but otherwise his reaction was cold and unmoved.

'I wish you had come to me, old friend,' Treize said, modulating his voice just slightly. He wanted to be heard. 'When your son died--'

'You don't get to speak of my son,' Sogran spat, rising at last to the bait.

'But we must,' Treize returned. 'He's why you're doing this, isn't he? Grief makes madmen of us all.'

Murmurs from the crowd followed that. Sogran was enraged, fully aware of that cameraman helpfully recording this new narrative. It wouldn't be enough to root out all the rumblings of conspiracy, but it would undermine its lead figures with the press who'd gleefully spread it on every broadcast.

'I need you, my friend,' Treize implored him. Sogran sneered at his dripping repetition of that term, knowing as well as Treize they'd only met socially after the war ended, had never even been as physically close to each other as they were right now, and knowing just as well as Treize that the truth would never matter. 'Our cause needs good men like you.'

'Cause?' Sogran laughed. 'You have no cause.'

Treize spread his hands. 'Peace,' he said. 'I need men like you to make this peace real.'

Sogran's big shoulders bunched. He moved in a step, stopped only by Zechs' outstretched hand. 'You only need men like me to make your lies seem real,' he shouted. Treize winced a little at the volume, which was aimed at the cameraman behind him but had to bypass his sensitive ears to get there. 'The Resistance will never die!' Sogran declared loudly. 'The people can see you for what you are, Khushrenada-- a dictator remaking the world in your own image.'

Do be a good man and say the word, Treize urged him silently. He wanted it to come from Sogran first. Just a bit more prodding. 'Resistance?' he repeated. 'There is no Resistance now, my friend. Are we not all one in the eyes of the law? Represented in Parliament? Working hand in hand to prevent more war and devastation?'

'This is not equality. This is slavery.'

'Hibiscus!' The cry came not from Sogran, who delivered his condemnation with an unmistakeable air of triumph, but from one of the kneeling men arrayed behind him. Two others took up the chant. Prepped from their careful plotting, Zechs let it carry on exactly long enough that the men began to lose their nerve, suddenly realising how very exposed and alone they were and cowering accordingly. Then at Zechs' gesture, their guards pushed them down to nose at the grass, and all died back to quiet.

Sogran broke it. His voice was dry as dust, eyes drooping almost closed. He said, 'I suppose arrest and trial.'

'Arrest,' Treize agreed comfortably. 'I don't know we need the bother of a trial. Or a soapbox. Have a care for your reputation, dear friend. You have less support than you think you do.'

No. Too far gone. Treize had once been an excellent fencer, earning his share of world-class medals for the sort of feats that belonged to competitive young men disdaining anything less than perfection. Though he hadn't raised an epee in years, the old habit of watching an opponent for the next move was engrained as muscle memory. He saw the shift of Sogran's shoulders, the straightening of the long spine, the deep steadying sigh, and he knew they wouldn't have any need at all for a trial, no, nor the arrest either. The opportunity to stop it was brief, probably no longer than a breath. But Treize let the breath pass, and with it all other possible endings to this sordid sad affair. Zechs gazed at him, concerned, and Treize shook his head.

'Let it happen,' he said.

 

**

 

'Quatre, you need to leave right now,' Duo whispered again. His fingers dug like iron into Quatre's arm, numbing it. 'Quatre, listen to me, you need to walk away.'

Trowa had arrived. Word must have spread beyond the quad; half the base was here now, and it had clearly been timed to facilitate the largest audience possible, with everyone between shifts and free to gawk at the spectacle. Trowa was struggling through the crowd toward them, trying to make his way without attracting notice. He needn't have bothered. No-one was paying the slightest mind to anything but the Field Marshal and Major Sogran.

Even the men who'd been dragged out with the Major were hyper-focused on their leader. All but one of them were Quatre's recruits from his clandestine meetings with the Major. The one who'd attacked Quatre at the construction site hung his head and squirmed, keening a weak useless complaint til he was rudely cuffed about the ear by his captor. One of those who chanted 'Hibiscus! Hibiscus' so proudly had been Quatre's first, and to see his eyes gleam with zeal turned Quatre's stomach.

Trowa reached him, and though he glared at Duo with dark suspicion he wasted no time in putting himself between Quatre and the quad, wrapping one long arm about his shoulders and shutting him up with a hand over the mouth, bodily lifting him off his feet. Quatre was lighter and smaller, and where Trowa pushed him he went, fight it though he did. But they didn't make it far. Ralph had come in behind them. Quatre reached out to anchor himself, thinking to wrench free of Trowa's hold, only to abruptly find himself back on the grass. He staggered, and Duo helped him up again.

'Kurt?' Trowa looked stunned, a moment, his eyes going wide before he caught himself and lapsed back to discreet blankness. 'I thought you were on L3,' he said.

'Trowa,' Ralph greeted him, inclining his head. He avoided Quatre's eyes. 'Was, yeah. Ended out here about a year, year and a half ago. Heard you were on base. Hadn't run into you yet.'

Quatre was hardly slow, and knew from the mere fact of Trowa's hesitation that they'd known each other, it had been before the war, and it was undoubtedly part of the strange and personal wounds Trowa carried from that time he would never speak of before he'd become the pilot of a Gundam. But that wasn't so much what concerned him. It was the fact that Duo, stubbornly dogging their steps, had also come to a wary halt. It wasn't just seeing another Preventer in Quatre's company that had surprised him, earlier. _He_ knew Ralph, or knew him by name now that he'd heard that. Months Ralph had been at his side, months of somehow always managing to be gone when Trowa was due to arrive, only present at supper on nights Trowa had shifts, all of it clicked into place.

He heard it, then. Behind them. Taking advantage of the others' momentary distraction, he stepped back, evaded Duo's quick reach and slipped through the crowd. There was no way for all three to come after him without attracting attention, and so they all three hesitated to be the one to break after him first, and it gave him time to get away. He swung wide and kept to the shadow of taller Preventers, finding himself a spot with a view of the quad just as Major Sogran raised his head high and declared, 'I want a pistol.'

There were gasps and murmurs from the assembly. The Field Marshal, too, reacted, obviously finding that unexpected. 'A duel?' he asked, and under the placid amusement of his tone Quatre heard something not unlike worry. No doubt he'd never agree and no-one could claim honour played any part in denying such a ridiculous request-- but that he might be wrong, that it might be more sinister--

And Quatre knew that, too, before it was spoken. Sogran didn't stand there like a man making a last ditch dodge toward freedom. He stood there like a man who'd met his doom and was determined to go on his own terms.

Whatever Khushrenada saw, the Field Marshal did the last thing Quatre would have expected. His hand waved sharply. Unheard, General Merquise protested, and Khushrenada shook his head. A moment later, his own gun hit the grass at Sogran's feet.

'You can still join me,' they'd say he told the Major, when the story repeated itself endlessly over the weeks to come. 'All sins forgiven.' Whether Khushrenada really said it or not didn't matter, and Quatre didn't know the truth, either way, could never remember it later. Khushrenada said something, mouth moving, as Sogran swooped to grab up the gun and cock it. There was a moment, a single moment, Sogran's big hands curled about it and just the muzzle visible as it swung up, and Quatre tasted blood as he bit his lip to keep from yelling out, as Merquise made to push the Field Marshal out of the way, when it seemed--

But it wasn't. The bullet that fired came from the crowd, not from Sogran. Two more followed from other directions, one chipping the eave over the Officer's Quarters, the other taking Sogran in the hip. He faltered, already falling. The first bullet sprayed brain matter, and he was already dead when the fourth and fifth bullets punctured his chest and blew out a chunk of his neck.

'Back!' Corporal Sneed was yowling. 'All you lot keep back! _Back!_ '

Someone hit Quatre from the side, causing him to stumble. When he went to a knee, Trowa was there to grab him up, holding him close and trying to shelter him. Quatre tucked his head as Trowa's hands in his hair grabbed tight from fear.

It was chaos, but Sneed's men fanned out fast, restoring order with fists and batons, pushing back the crowd from the quad's edge and establishing a wider perimetre far from the dead man and the man who lay on the grass, sprawled in perpendicular. Merquise stayed over the Field Marshal just as Trowa did over Quatre, til all the shooters had self-identified and come forward.

' _QUIET!_ ' Sneed howled, and beneath that Quatre heard the Field Marshal issue a sigh.

'Waste of a good heart,' Khushrenada said, and even if it was only for the benefit of the astonished cameraman, he touched Sogran's staring eyes with his own fingertips, and drew them closed.

If he looked at Quatre before he strode out of the quad and into the waiting car that whizzed him off to safety, no-one knew it but the two of them.

 

**

 

'I don't know what possessed you,' Zechs ranted. In the privacy of Treize's office he raged as he could not before witnesses, and his leonine strides this way and that added to the effect of a tiger who would maul if he could only get free of his cage. 'We went over this specifically! We all guessed he'd try for a public suicide, Treize, what possessed you to give it to him?'

'Mr Maxwell,' Treize mumbled, and felt a presence at his elbow. 'Two aspirin, please. There by the bar.'

Zechs hesitated in his prowling. 'I didn't push you that hard.'

'No.' Treize spared him a small and genuine smile. 'Only a headache. Thank you, Mr Maxwell.' He swallowed the tabs with a sip of sparkling water, grimacing it down. 'Any injuries?' he asked. 'Do we have a definitive report?'

'Just the building,' Maxwell said. He was mechanical in his service, now, dropping his eyes when heads turned to him.

'We know who fired that one?' Treize pressed him. 'Mis-fired, as it were.'

'I'll take care of it,' Zechs said. He fell into the other chair before the hearth, a hand to his pinched brow. 'Treize. Why.'

There was no good answer. To say that he hadn't intended and hadn't thought he'd be that foolish was a given. To say it had been an impulse was untrue and unkind, as well, because he'd known death would follow that wish when he granted it. He said, 'The tape?'

'Bancroft's reviewing it,' Maxwell informed him. 'He'll have copy here in fifteen.'

Bancroft had been one of the shooters. The first, actually, the shot that had ended the threat. Hell of a last day, Treize thought, and grimaced for that as well. There was no good way to thank a man for saving you from a threat you'd made after assuring everyone you wouldn't. That Zechs was so furious with him was evidence of that.

But he was the Field Marshal. Explanations he owed only when he felt them warranted. Apologies were never owed, and he couldn't, even to Zechs, who was still his General a little while longer, and one who'd put himself into danger because Treize had been noble and stupid instead of calculating and safe.

He'd lapsed into silence. Zechs must have asked him a question, but he'd forgot it, never heard it. Zechs was shaking his head in exasperation. There was a grass stain on his knees, where he'd landed on Treize.

'Did you put me on Hibiscus because you knew a Gundam Pilot was involved? So you could say we did it to ourselves.'

Treize rubbed at the spot between his eyes, wishing it were snowing instead of raining. Snow was beautiful. Rain was too close to his mood to calm him. 'Objects in motion tend to stay in motion,' he said.

'The hell does that mean?'

The morning's exaltation was a long-distant memory, now. It had always been that way for him, the joy of battle swiftly giving way to the grisly untidy reality of life lived in the aftermath. 'It means I'm a pragmatist, Mr Maxwell,' he said, 'and so are you. I expect it's why we understand ourselves so well-- or do when we're not practising self-deception. If I may offer you advice, don't apologise to your friend. He won't welcome it and it will only confirm what he might otherwise only suspect.'

'God, you can't even stop,' Maxwell marvelled. 'You just manipulate anything, everything. Let it fucking rest.'

'You may need him one day,' Treize said, brushing that childish sting aside with the contempt it deserved. 'He's proved malleable enough that he might forgive you if you don't give him reason to hate you. Be practical, Mr Maxwell. It's the only thing standing between you and utter damn irrelevancy.'

'Treize,' Zechs said.

'Later, my dearest,' he answered belatedly, and Zechs sighed. 'Let us wrap the rest of this package with all possible haste. Someone's located the boy?'

Zechs rose. 'They were holding him downstairs. I'll check. Treize--' He paused, standing over Treize with a decidedly odd expression that Treize found indecipherable. Zechs made as if to speak, but instead he licked his thumb and bent. He swiped at a spot on Treize's neck. 'You've got red just there,' he said, finding a linen kerchief to clean his hand, and then he was gone.

His glass had gone empty. The bottle of water, crystal blue and marked with whatever expensive and select spa had produced it, still sat open on the bar, and it was to that bottle that Treize aimed himself when he stood. When he touched his full tumbler to his lips, however, he discovered the familiar taste of vodka, and found himself holding a souvenir from some half-remembered night club in Kyiv. He'd thought it higher quality, drunk and pleased with himself that night. It had a sour milk aftertaste, now, and he drank it down with bourgeois economy simply because he had poured it and abhored waste. Waste. How apt a word for a day like this.

He had poured a second before he remembered he didn't like the stuff, and with a sigh reached for the ice bucket, thinking to chill it would alleviate the worst of the problem. The ice bucket was emptied. He never liked adjusting to new staff-- Bancroft knew to anticipate and plan around his schedule, and Maxwell hadn't yet, if he ever would, pick up on such nuances of the post. Treize tucked the bucket under his arm and carried it with him into the hall, swinging wide his door and stepping out toward the service stairs.

He found them there. Necking, he believed it was called, Maxwell on the step above and Zechs making swift headway beneath his untucked shirt. Trousers were unzipped and furtive movement spoke to their progress toward a quick finish.

Treize bent, and deposited the bucket at the top of the stairs. It clinked on the marble. 'When you have a moment,' he said, and left before he had to watch them scramble away in shame.

 

**

 

Quatre had never been to the house in Luxembourg's town proper where the Field Marshal and a few others housed. He had no curiosity about it, having seen grander places in his former life, and no-one troubled to tell him anything other than where to sit. They didn't mistreat him, didn't seem to even know particularly why he was there, and it was only when a passing footman offered him coffee that he realised how much he might still blend in to such a place. He uncrossed his ankles, removed his arm from the striped white-and-gold cushion on which he sat, and stared at a large Turner landscape framed in grotesquely heavy silver. Militaresque men were pinpoints of red amid a raging sea of dark blue and stormy green. Their ships were going down, but Turner painted it as an epic about the majesty of nature, not one of a million minor tragedies of man.

It was Duo who came for him. He was dishevelled, here and there, a lock of hair that had been pulled out of the braid tucked behind his ear and falling loose again. He was missing a button on his left sleeve. There was an odd blush on his cheeks, turning him dusky pink.

'Hey,' he said, and cleared his throat.

Quatre stood. There was a momentary flutter in his stomach. His heart. He inclined his head, not trusting himself to speak.

'Uh,' Duo said. 'His Excellency is upstairs. He wants to talk to you.'

'Yes.' Quatre's voice emerged as a strangled whisper. He didn't try to repeat himself.

'This way.' Duo pointed to the stairs. 'I'll go up with you. Um-- Quatre. I'm...'

'You don't know anything about it.'

'I do.' Duo didn't quite touch him, but came near enough to it that their skin heated from nearness. Quatre concentrated on his steps, climbing the stairs. 'I know... enough to know what that meant to you.'

'No, you really don't.' 

Duo didn't say anything more, though it looked like he wanted to. They walked along an open landing lined in dark-stained oak with graceful brass rails, the verandah spotted every ten feet with statuary, hanging frames of famous Romantic artists, potted palms and manicured topiaries. It was a beautiful place, a place of texture and colour and shine, all lit by chandeliers that dangled cut crystal on golden chains. Quatre saw none of it. It hurt his eyes, and he stared at his feet, his scuffed boots stepping, stepping, stepping toward the door at the end of the hall.

Duo rapped. A soft voice beckoned them in. Duo pushed at the latch, then paused. 'I'll be out here if you need anything,' he said, blurted, really, with that odd flush on his face. It almost looked like guilt. The Duo he'd known would run and hide before he lied, and Quatre didn't know if that meant anything at all anymore.

The Field Marshal had recovered from his close call. He was tidy and pressed as always, but for the impish curl of the cowlick over his forehead. He wore black-rimmed eyeglasses, which came off as he looked up from his work. 'Sit, please, young man,' he said, and Quatre took the chair that had been moved into place for him, a leather wingback that rose far higher than his head when he eased down carefully on the cushion.

There was no interrogation. There were no questions at all. It went on in silence, in fact, for so long that Quatre began to suspect it was a tactic to encourage him to babble just to fill the quiet. He let it itch at him, let it pass, and then when he bottomed out, he spoke.

'Where will I be sent?'

The Field Marshal's lips pursed slightly. 'Sent?' he repeated politely.

'You can't keep me here,' Quatre said. 'You have to send me away.'

Khushrenada moved a folder, lined a cup of pens with the edge of his desk. 'No-where,' he replied. 'I don't need to hide you down a dark hole.'

'You need to neutralise me.'

'All I need to do to neutralise you is use the publicity you yourself have already generated,' the Field Marshal said coolly. 'Sogran was Hibiscus. He all but declared it with that ridiculous shoot-out on the front lawn. You exposed him for us. Bravely done. And now a traitor is dead.' He waited, but Quatre was unprovoked. 'But no,' Khushrenada murmured. 'That would paint a target on your back for the rest of your surely short life. The Resistance would never forgive you. Better to let Hibiscus fade from history. You'll integrate. You'll be a model of the new world order, and the Resistance will fail without a leader. Without an icon. People need their symbols.'

Sogran had said that. Quatre had never entirely believed him. He wasn't sure it registered now, except with hatred. He bit his tongue til it bled.

'Don't mourn him.' Khushrenada folded his hands. Quatre dropped his eyes, automatic reaction, then raised them again, equally instinctive. Khushrenada nodded to himself. 'He was a very bad man, Mr Winner. He made you a stooge and he would have been your death, one way or another. He didn't want a leader for a new movement, he wanted a martyr for a crusade. He exploited your weakness. Rather easily, it seems.'

Quatre wet his lips. 'Then what do you want from me.'

'Nothing.'

It was too unadorned to be anything but the truth. It was awful to hear.

Khushrenada moved the folder again, and finally tossed it across the desk. 'Live your life,' he said then. 'Keep your lover out of trouble and keep your head down. You have talents. It would be pleasant to think you might use them for good.'

'Your good.'

'This is how you survive in this world, Mr Winner. This is how you win.'

'If that's all there is,' Quatre said, 'then thank you, your Excellency.'

Khushrenada's mouth was tight. His blink was slow and his eyes stayed closed after. 'Tell someone downstairs to drive you back to Base,' he murmured, and that was the last time they ever spoke to each other.


	18. Trowa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

It was fifteen-hundred-twenty-two when Quatre met him outside the gym, took him by the elbow, and walked him briskly across base.  There was construction by the Southern Gate, new officer housing and conference rooms and something that was rumoured to be an upscale food mall for the families that were expected to accompany that influx of officers, and Quatre knew the keycode.  Trowa had been suspicious for a while-- probably not long enough a while-- about where Quatre went when Trowa couldn't watch him, but for the moment he was merely curious.  Quatre lied to protect other people.  Mystery for the sake of mystery was too much energy.

He didn't wonder long.  Quatre climbed stairs with his hand in Trowa's.  He checked around a corner, lifted a plastic film hanging from a half-finished wall.  Then he pushed Trowa into a rough panel of unwired electricals and sucked viciously at his throat.

It felt suspiciously like the abandonment of senses.  Quatre abandoning good sense, not Trowa.  Trowa weighed both sides of this-- to fuck or to let Quatre fuck knowing it was covering for something-- but then Quatre ripped at his belt buckle and angled his hips up to Trowa's, and his mouth was red and wet, and he took a small plastic pot from his pocket.  Petroleum jelly.  His lips made shapes in the stubble of Trowa's neck, please, please.  Please.

Trowa wrestled him to the sawdust and yanked him out of his trousers. 

 

 

Quatre Winner had many strange and interesting skills, not least his piloting. But the one Trowa had studied and aped the most was Quatre's ability to never say no.

Before Quatre he'd never known anyone who could dance with words, say so many things that people forgot what they'd actually asked him, turn people around til they thought it was their own idea. Trowa had no facility with words. They were clumsy in his mouth, and he disliked feeling clumsy, so he didn't talk much. Quatre was far more clever. He talked well enough for both of them. Trowa found other ways to contribute-- his height, his fists.

His body. He couldn't make Quatre take, so he gave as much as he could. Sometimes it was even enough.

He thought, perhaps, and never said, that he was better suited to what happened to them after the war. Preventers was better than he'd thought they'd get, and he'd known an earlier life of taking orders and keeping his silence, keeping his head down. It was so much harder for Quatre, who needed to be useful, who never stopped trying to make things better, even for people he loathed. For a while Quatre had used his gift of words for all of them, taking interviews, going out on media runs, standing in as The Gundam Pilot for Preventers propaganda videos. Millions had watched him grow up, a teenaged renegade made good as he suited up, drove humvees, handed out food in refugee camps, shot at never-quite-visible targets over dusty hills in some backwards country daring to stand against the new world order. Quatre's smile had probably melted hearts, staring out at girls no older than him from their bedroom walls. There was an entire industry behind Quatre's headshot, an auto-pen cranking hour after hour with his jagged QRW and a variety of pay-by-the-penny good wishes. He'd been the face of the new regime, til that face had gone too hollow to hide with powder and bright lights. When his hands shook so hard his audience could feel it. When he opened his mouth, one day, and nothing came out.

Trowa did what he'd always done for Quatre, only he tried harder. He kissed harder. He made Quatre look at him the entire time. He said Quatre's name over and over, the only word that ever came out right. He made Quatre touch him, he made himself need so that Quatre would want to.

 

 

World-wide news covered the shoot-out for days.

The footage replayed over and over.  It had been a while since Peace had yielded any high drama, and the reporter who'd had the good luck to be hand-picked for experience was an instant celebrity.  Field Marshal Khushrenada declined all interviews except to make a brief prepared statement, but the entire Sphere was buzzing.  Hibiscus had come out of no-where and now were nothing; Khushrenada was an unparalleled military genius, and wasn't it sad, how he'd tried to save that Sogran person and failed?  News of dozens of arrests filtered out for a week, mug-shots proudly displayed by solemn-faced talking heads, and it was widely agreed to be a successful operation of the best kind, totally-- well, nearly-- bloodless.

Quatre threw up after the first broadcast, and then he left any room with a television.

 

 

They'd only been body to body like this three times.  All before the war ended.  Once-- once and a half, the day they met.  Rashid Manguanac interrupted them, and read an impressively aggrieved lecture at Quatre, who smiled the entire time as if he couldn't stop.  Twice the night before Libra.  The Quatre who'd grinned sharp white grins and laughed at all the right moments had been gone by then.  The Quatre who had a scar on his hip and who flinched when Trowa got too near it had cried at all the wrong moments.  He'd clung like he was afraid to let go, but he never said no, and they'd been out of prison and dumped into Preventers before Trowa had figured out this Quatre would never, ever tell him anything honest again.

They rolled on the splintered wooden floor, collecting grit in their hair and scraping knees and knuckles.  Quatre gasped when Trowa pushed into him, and it echoed through the empty rooms.  He was so tight it hurt them both, which relieved some obscure unspoken fear in Trowa's belly, and he made fists in Quatre's shirt and sweated through his own, Quatre's arms wrapped slippery-hot about his neck.  He slapped with his hips, he slowed to deep long strokes, he gummed his hand with the jelly and did it again when he wore it out stroking Quatre's prick.  They were both red-faced, the need to come building to the point where he was almost angry-- but Quatre didn't, couldn't, and there were tears of frustration leaking from his eyes when he kicked Trowa away with a knee and rolled them.  They slid, all overheated limbs, heaving chests, and a loose screw scratched at Trowa's back, a pinprick of pain as Quatre kissed him desperately.  He wrapped Quatre close from behind, figuring out their legs just enough to-- yes-- he got back inside Quatre, biting his lip hard enough to taste copper.  He was vaguely ashamed of himself for the force of his orgasm, wringing him dry.  He pressed his eyelids into Quatre's shoulder, heavy and floating at once.  His watch beeped for seventeen hundred hours.

 

 

Trowa met him every morning outside his barracks, rushing through reveille and taking a shortcut around the PX.  Quatre waited for him, dead-faced to the lazy morning jeers of their fellows.  Trowa walked him to Medical, and every morning Quatre queued for Dispensation, signed the register, took the small paper cup and swallowed three pills.  The morning after the Hibiscus raid Quatre met him, walked with him, stood in queue for twenty minutes, got the cup in his hand, and suddenly his shoulders went tight.  He put the cup back.

'No,' he said.

There was a heated argument, conducted in whispers through the Dispensary window, til the door to the left opened and a doctor in a crisp white coat gestured impatiently for Quatre to follow him in.  Trowa waited as long as he could, but Quatre was locked inside through the breakfast hour, and Trowa had duty in Support Service at oh-eight-hundred.  He had to leave, and he didn't see Quatre again til the next morning, when Quatre did it again.  The morning after that, Quatre never came out of his barracks, or perhaps had never returned to them at all.  He didn't reappear til Friday, fifteen-hundred-twenty-two exactly, waiting for Trowa at the gym and saying nothing at all.

 

 

He touched.  They just touched, exploring, caressing.  The whorl of Quatre's ears he liked especially, and he found and mapped all the freckles on his cheeks and forearms, traced the straight lines at his ankles and biceps where he'd tanned to the shape of his uniform.  He licked at the light gold hair that linked Quatre's small pink nipples to the bisecting trail between his pectorals, followed it down over the firm muscle of his belly, dug his nose into the heavy musk of his groin.  He sucked on Quatre's thumb, learning the ridges of his fingerprint with his tongue, and he sucked on the soft slick flesh of Quatre's prick, salty with oils that Trowa rubbed in with long strokes of his palm.  They kissed, just for the luxury of kissing, tongues playing, teeth nipping, lips chapping.  He held Quatre.  He laid his hands flat on Quatre's sharp shoulderblades, he circled each bump of his spine, he wrapped him tight and drew Quatre's bare legs over his til their toes bumped and they breathed in time.

 

 

'Ralph.'

The man slowed, wary before he remembered not to be.  His smile was open, his handclasp friendly, but the shutters were down behind his eyes.

'Quatre says you smoke,' Trowa murmured, tugging at his shirt pocket to display the carton he'd tucked there.  'Got a moment.'

'For you, anything.'  Ralph followed him off the footpath.  Trowa went no farther than the hedge beside the smoker's glass shelter; he offered a cigarette, propping another at his own lips.  Ralph had his own lighter and with a little snick of flame he inhaled, the tip of the cigarette flaring bright red.  Trowa borrowed it, lighting his own.

'Haven't seen you since L3. When did you join up?' he asked, pausing to pick a little bit of loose leaf from his tongue, wipe it away.  He returned the lighter.

'When they opened it to colonials,' Ralph admitted.  'I had a moment with White Fang.  It wasn't for me.  Wasn't quite ready to give up the life, though, so.'

'So you joined the only group legally allowed to operate weapons,' Trowa finished drily.  Ralph grinned sideways at him, calculating.

'Don't be sore,' he said then, turning his head to blow a stream of smoke.  'Meant to look you up, only I figured it might draw the wrong kind of attention to you.  Old allies make for bad associates these days.  Then, too-- Quatre.'  He flicked away the smallest speck of ash with a practised flick.  'I gather he never told you he and I were mates?'

'No,' Trowa said.  He let smoke dribble from his nose.  It was acrid, cheap.  'He didn't.'

'Look.'  Ralph shifted from one boot to the other.  'I know right now you've got to be swamped with questions.  Don't come down too hard on him.  A blind man could read the fear comin' off him.  I just wanted to help him, Trowa.'

Trowa stared down at the flame eating away the cigarette between his fore and middle fingers.  He nodded when he thought he could manage it, and Ralph kicked at his boot, lightly, knocking it an inch.

'You look all right, then.'

'Yeah.'  A sergeant left the mess and craned her neck to see them.  Trowa ducked to the right, through the hedge, and Ralph followed.  'Low profile,' Trowa said, with no small irony, and Ralph chuckled.

'Things'll get better now,' he said.  'Just keepin' on.'

'That Major.  The one who died.'  Trowa set his shoulders to a juniper bush, and Ralph faced him directly, squinting at the setting sun coming low and bright.  'Quatre was some kind of involved, wasn't he.  He never told me.'

'He never said as much to me.'

'This Hibiscus shit.'  He let his anxiety show in an inhale that wasn't quite deep enough, and he coughed on the ciggy smoke.  He wiped his mouth and looked away.

'Hey, kid.'  Ralph came a step in, shading his eyes with a hand, and then he joined Trowa in a stance against the juniper.  'If they were after Quatre they'd've done something about it.  It was Sogran they wanted.  Ringleaders and big names.  Quatre's not, not really.'

'Then why Quatre at all?'

'They needed a stooge.'  Ralph nudged his shoulder.  'It's over though, yeah?  Don't worry, Trowa.  Quatre made it through.  He's a tough little nugget.'

The condescension in that made it particularly easy to flip his cigarette and jab the lit butt into Ralph's dangling hand.  Startled by the unexpected hurt, Ralph tensed, and Trowa helped him along by knocking his arm up and out of the way, popping the snap on his hip holster and kicking his leg out at the knee.  Ralph sprawled, his gun in Trowa's hand, cocked and aimed before he rolled, flinging up an arm in a vain attempt to protect himself.

Quatre put his hand over Trowa's.  Trowa surrendered the weapon immediately.  Quatre took his spot, standing over the downed man with a thoughtful set to his solemn face.  He thumbed the safety off.

'Thank you,' Quatre said absently.  'That was easier than I thought it would be.'

'Quatre--'  Ralph eased up on his elbow, and Trowa stepped casually on his burnt hand.  Ralph fell back with a squeal as Trowa twisted his heel into vulnerable bones.

'Then again, I suppose it was easier than you imagined, too,' Quatre said, as if he'd not been interrupted.  'Tell me, did you have to lead Sogran to me, or was it just coincidence, all of us meeting that day at the barber?  Was that when you realised how incredibly easy it would be to lead us into conspiracy?'

'You can't shoot me,' Ralph spat.

'I can,' Quatre corrected.  'I'll be punished, but I won't be stopped til it's too late for you.  We're quite cut off in this spot.  No cameras, no eyeline.'  He tilted his chin.  'What was the end game?  Keeping up the facade with Trowa just now.  Just plain opportunism?  Never let a mark spin out of your orbit, in case he might be useful again.'

'You're my friend.'  Ralph fought back, this time, when Trowa applied pressure, and Trowa kicked him hard in the chest.  He fell back with a gasp, clutching his ribcage.  'You are,' he coughed.  'I never lied to you about that.'

'The fight that got Trowa put in Solitary.  You as well?  There was no actual reason for him to be blamed.'

'I may have-- may have accelerated things.'  Ralph's eyes flickered between them, trying to figure out who to play.  Who to take seriously.  Trowa gave him no clues, and Quatre's expression was utterly unyielding, his hands steady as gundamium as he kept the laser sight levelled between Ralph's eyes.  'It was always Sogran we wanted,' Ralph said then.  'You were just bait.'

'And I was so very stupid,' Quatre said so soft he was almost soundless.

'Not stupid.  Powerless.'  Ralph's mouth twisted, going sour and ugly.  He sat up on his elbows again, curling away from them.  'You could've turned him in any time.  Got the same privileges he was handing you, the food, the favours.  But you didn't, and now he's dead, and so will you be one day if you don't wake the fuck up and start protecting yourself.  You should be letting me help you, not taking it out on me!'

Trowa called an end to it.  It had never been so much about information as confirmation that Ralph had nothing useful left to gain from them, and Trowa was satisfied that Ralph wasn't smart enough to play them now they were onto him.  He hadn't been smart enough to avoid an ambush, and he wasn't smart enough even to bluff, when Trowa crouched over him, put his hand over Ralph's face, and shoved him into the dirt.

'Leave us alone,' Trowa whispered to him, grinding him down into the trampled grass.  'You go near him again and I'll make you pay.  Understood?'

'Unnerstin,' Ralph gasped, muffled and shaking, and Trowa pushed just a little harder, until he squirmed for air.  He let go when Ralph began to really struggle, and stood.

Quatre was staring down at him, unblinking.  Unbreathing.  The gun hadn't moved, not even to follow Ralph's change in position.  Trowa tried to take it, intending to wipe it down, but Quatre twitched away, coming to himself suddenly.  'We should hide it,' he said, stilted, and Trowa nodded.  It would give them a little extra time to get away clean.

'Quatre.'  Ralph made it to his knees behind them, swaying, covered in sod and uniform askew.  'Quatre, I just wanted to say-- I am your friend.  Even if you don't like it.  Don't throw yourself away, is all.'

Quatre's head was bent low.  He was shorter than Trowa, and angled like that Trowa couldn't read him, not even the confused signals of his body language, the way he both leant in and sagged as if only the last scraps of willpower were all that held him up.  His hand clenched on the gun.  It wavered, turning to catch the light on the muzzle, the tendons in Quatre's wrist flexing as he shifted his grip.

'Please give it to me,' Ralph said, the way you talked to a frightened animal, a cornered animal about to go mad.  'Don't do anything stupid, Quatre.  Here.  Look, I was keeping it for you.'  He fumbled in his pocket.  It was a chocolate bar, in a pretty silver wrapper.

It was only in that moment Trowa realised how near it was to stupid.  To lethal.  But even as he reached, Quatre turned away.  The gun thudded to the dirt, and Quatre walked away.  Trowa bit his lip til he tasted blood.

 

 

Quatre came, his hand wrapped tight in Trowa's hair, his heartbeat thudding against Trowa's chest.

They were slow cleaning up, and when they finally got to Mess, the dinner hour was nearly past.  Trowa used his height to glance over the heads of their colleagues, and shook his head at Quatre-- the cook was a one-time OZ regular.  Frozen yoghurt and bread rolls, coffee if there was any left.

But when he indicated their usual table, Quatre's jaw squared tight.  He took Trowa's hand.  There in the middle of the hall.  And he walked boldly to the short queue at the buffet, and took a tray from the wet stack, and put two plates on it.  He stared down the cook when he stopped at the first station, beef and dumpling stew.

'No,' he said, when the cook turned to get them plates held back on the counter behind him.  Just that.  No.

Trowa was tense from shoulders to toes, ready to throw a punch, to run.  To carry Quatre out if anything-- but nothing did happen.  The cook slowly put down the plates, and reached for the ladle in the stew pot.  The slop he aimed at Quatre's tray sprayed and dripped, a bit, but landed mostly in the trenchers, and he followed it with a scoop of greens for each of them, and cut a fresh slice of carrot cake from the middle of the sheet, shoving the plate across the divide.  The way Quatre released his gaze was almost an audible click, and the cook shuddered, once, with a muttered curse.

Trowa carried their tray.  When they sat, their backs to the wall as always, Quatre put his hand on Trowa's knee under the table, and didn't remove it for the rest of the meal.


	19. Treize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Does it have to be so fucking cold here?'

'Not being Miami Beach, yes, that's rather the point.'

'Who chooses to live in a place like this?'

The wind smelled like ice.  It was ice, all around them, for all it was-- dubiously-- spring.  And fit to be a lovely spring, at that, with an early warm spell and blue sky tinting the white misty clouds with hope.

'No-one chooses Siberia,' Treize said.  'Siberia is chosen for you-- like drunkard fathers.  Or a predisposition for smart-mouthing.'

Duo Maxwell stood with his face turned up to what would be the sun, in a month or so.  He had the unerring sense of direction of a pilot, more than some Earther-born Treize had known in the profession.  He had North in his blood.

'See there,' Treize said then, and Maxwell opened his eyes, then slitted them against the wind, and followed Treize's pointing finger.  'Our destination.  Shall we leave the car behind and foot it?'

'It's your show.'

'Why, do you know,' Treize said, affecting surprise.  'It is, isn't it?'  Maxwell snorted, and shuddered deep into his fur-collared coat, but he trudged along without further protest.

 

**

 

It began, as most things did in Treize's world, with his command.

'Clear my schedule,' he told Maxwell, and made a point of not checking to be sure it was done, nor even whether it was done well.  If Maxwell made mistakes so early in his new rank, he would learn as much from the burn as he would from being corrected like a hapless child.  Instead, Treize departed for the evening, awarded himself the luxury of a full bath and a glass of champagne, and met his car at four of the morning, feeling brighter than he had for some time and anticipatory of a good adventure.

'Buck up,' he told his sleepy-eyed companion.  'There's usually coffee on the flights.'

Maxwell scrubbed his pale cheeks as Treize pretended to look the other way.  'There's a flight?  More than one flight?' he mumbled, and then looked sharpish.  'Who booked the flight if I didn't?'

'I did.'

'Bullshit,' Maxwell said, and caught himself.  Then he laughed abruptly.  'It is bullshit.  You've never booked anything for yourself in your life.'

Treize grinned and buttoned his coat to the chin.  A very good adventure, he forecasted, and planned on enjoying it.

Their journey took some nineteen hours, crossing a time zone in the process.  Maxwell drove the small bland vehicle they were given at the airport, and did well enough for someone who'd probably never been legally trained at it, perhaps overly conscious of his companion in the passenger seat.  They were well past afternoon and into evening twilight when they reached their destination at last.

It was less a village than a cluster of pre-fab houses, all in quickly-advancing disrepair.  The elements were not kind, not out here.  A few more long and harsh winters would reduce everything to bare dirt.  Maxwell was silent, following him up the meandering footpath.  Treize was in no great rush, and took the time to explore on whim.  They startled a fox tending its den beneath the crumbling foundation of what had once been the Mail House.  Maxwell was more agile than him, clambering over the slats of the fallen roof and unearthing the faded sign.  'What's it say?' he asked, turning it toward Treize.

'Telephone,' Treize translated, though he did it from memory and without reading the hand-painted words.

'A telephone was so exciting it got its own house?'

'This was also the storehouse and the gas line, but yes.  The arrival of the telephone was one of the most exciting days of our lives here.'

Maxwell looked up keenly.  'You lived here?'

'For eleven years.'  Treize overturned a broken brick with his foot.  'My father was exiled for writing anti-Alliance articles.  My mother and my four brothers and I were all sent after him.'

'That's not in your biography.'

'No, it is not.  My mother's uncle, Dermail, was instrumental in erasing quite a lot of bad press from history.  Not out of any kindness-- relatives with unsavoury pasts did him no good, and he was eager to remove the blight.'

Maxwell spun a tin plate off into the frost-burnt grass.  'What are we doing here, Field Marshal?  You don't have a sentimental bone in your body.  You aren't homesick, and even if you were this place isn't worth it.'

'No, I'm not homesick.'  Treize performed a slow reconnoiter, orientating himself.  'There,' he said.  'That one on the far left.  You brought the lantern?  I don't fancy turning an ankle.'

'Jesus, we're not spending the night out here?'

Treize laughed at that.  'You may relax,' he said.  'We have a hotel back in civilisation.  We won't be here long.'

The house was set apart from the others, just beyond the dip of land that was not quite spirited enough to be a hill, and served to hide only the first level from view.  Treize removed his gloves as they walked toward it, tucking them into his coat.  There was hardly water enough for mud, and their boots collected reddish dust, but it was the wind that truly brought memories, the unrelenting wind.  It swept the whole continent with little interruption, whipping at their exposed skin and leaving stinging pains behind.  Treize lost feeling in his ears quickly, his nose following not long after.  Tears from his pained eyes froze on his lashes.  He laughed, once, and the wind snatched it from his lips, carried it off like a thousand other secrets.

'This was our home,' Treize called, and Maxwell turned his head.  'No postal address,' Treize said.  'It was here when we arrived.  I believe the previous owners must have been quite old, as only the ground level was occupied.  There were spiderwebs like rope in the first floor.  My little attic had an owl in it, a grand fellow with an impressive wingspan.  We made good bunk mates-- he kept my brothers out, at any rate.  I wept when my mother netted him that first winter.  She stewed him.  I refused to eat it, so she let me go hungry.  This is not a place for romantic notions.'

'You're making that up.'

'No,' Treize said.  'Unfortunately not.'  There was no lock on the front door.  Treize wobbled on wooden steps that were going hollow with dry-rot.  He put his shoulder to the warped door frame and pushed; with an echoing little pop it opened, and took the entirety of the upper hinge with it.  Treize propped it against the inside wall.  Maxwell followed at his wave, but went left where Treize stepped straight ahead.  Some of the slatting for the upper storeys had caved in, and his parents' bed now occupied the parlour.  The duvet had long been colonised by various animals, leaving only bits of cotton batting and a few blue threads behind.  Treize touched one brass bedknob, and passed it by.  The open sky peering through the shattered roof was getting quite dark, but he knew the way, and found the kitchen.  Yes.  As it had been left, a stained and bedraggled sheet over the table, the shabby chairs stacked in the corner by the cabinetry.  Treize gestured for Maxwell, and they each took one, setting them in place on the creaking boards.  Treize whipped the cloth off the table and used the edge to dust their seats.  Maxwell swore, startled, and Treize looked up to find him staring at a nest in the hutch.

'There's kittens,' Maxwell said, almost accusatory.

'Ferals,' Treize said.  He felt in his pocket, and withdrew the pack of sugar cubes he'd been given for tea on the flight.  He ripped the plastic and palmed the crumbles, then flung it into the dark corner.

'You keep this place for a reason,' Maxwell said then.

'A reminder.  And because I'm the only one left to keep it.'

'If you're going to keep it, we should fix it up.'

'No,' Treize said, indifferent to the note of distaste in Maxwell's pinched mouth.  'I like it like this,' he said.  'It's too big a task for one person, in any event.'  He dusted his hands and sat.  The bleached embroidery of the chair was no cushion at all, against either the cold or the uncomfortably hard seat.  He flicked a finger at Maxwell's duffel.  'Please.'

Maxwell brought it, and took his own chair when Treize nodded at it.  'Cats don't eat sugar,' he said, dumping the bag on the table.  He brushed a spider off his chairback and sat with a cringe, clearly expecting it to crumble at his weight.  The wood moaned, but held.

'The mice will, and the cats will eat the mice.'  Their meal, purchased at the airport, was cold sandwiches and pastries of artichoke and spinach.  Plastic bottles of water were the only accompaniment, and he used the sleeve of his coat as his serviette.  The pastry was greasy and the sandwich of whitefish and egg left crumbs, but the mice would eat that, too, and Treize ignored the mess.  Maxwell seemed to find the process distressing-- not the manners, surely, as Treize had been exposed to more than enough of Maxwell's notion of confrontational dining to be sure it was not too rude for his sensibilities.  'Don't like it?' Treize asked.

Maxwell promptly stuffed himself with an overlarge bite, and wiped his mouth on his arm as he chewed.  He coughed a little, unscrewing his bottle cap to sip.  'All right,' he said.  'So what are we really doing here if it's not nostalgia?'

So impatient.  That would take curing, but that, too, was too large as a task for one person, and Treize knew his limits.  'You've mentioned before that you read my profile,' he said only.  'You know that my father and our family were exiled here for political posturing.  We came with some seven or eight other families, all sent here by Romafeller.'

'Yeah.  I get that you might have baggage.'

He waved that off, shredding crust from his sandwich.  'It was a fine way to grow up.  No harder than might be expected.  My brothers were old enough to remember life in Perekop, but this was all I knew and I was happy enough here.  That hill out the window-- I used to play there with them.  Alliance soldiers.  Though as the youngest, I was usually relegated to being rescued.'

'So why let it go to shit like this?'

'Only memories live here now.  And I will not be repopulating this place, obviously.'  The dry reference to his sexual preferences elicited a twitch of Maxwell's brow.  'Even the town that used to be on the road back there is abandoned.  Why preserve something that was always meant to be temporary?  There are no monuments here.  Just minor memories.  Beginnings without endings.'  Treize licked a smidge of cheese from his thumb.  'Eat.  We have one more place to visit.'

Maxwell did not obey, of course, though his fingers did the talking, touching all edges of his sandwich, rotating the pastry on its square of waxpaper.  This was their third meal together, and Treize had given up chasing the young man's obscure dietary desires, assuming Maxwell would tell him when he tired of the game.  Or perhaps he had tired of it, for suddenly he ate all of it in one steady go, measured bites that took him through the sandwich and relish and then even the half of pastry that Treize had planned to abandon.  He left a safe amount of water in his bottle, but capped it decisively, crumpled their trash into a single pile, and sat with his chin up, waiting.

'You brought me here for a reason,' he decided.

Treize was inclined to grin, and was careful not to.  'To act without reason is to act stupidly.'

'How long are you going to tease?  Or am I supposed to figure it out?'

'You're an impatient young man.  I wonder why.  It doesn't occur to you to indulge me simply because of my position?'

'What fun would that be?'

Treize brushed his hands and capped his own water.  'We're here for me to explain myself to you.  If we're going to go any further together, you need to understand, or begin to understand, which requires we go back to the beginning.  Perhaps when you have more of the pieces you will find me less of a puzzle.  And then you will resist me less when I ask simple things of you.'

'I don't always resist you,' Maxwell said, in what was surely more of a rosy promise than a factual statement.  'But your point is taken.'  He stood and slung the duffel over his shoulder.  The lantern snicked as he turned it on, throwing strange shadows over the plain walls.  The kittens in the hutch mewled and scattered.  Something that was probably not a cat left its perch in the dry sink and slunk off for the safety of a hidden corner.  'Okay,' Maxwell said.  'Let's go.'

His sense of adventure had returned by the time they reached the dilapidated outbuilding.  It had never been quite large enough to be a barn, and they'd had no animals besides.  Once it might have held a car, though exiles weren't really supposed to be able to leave at will, and Treize had always doubted it.  It was in worse shape even than the houses, listing visibly to one side and completely roofless now.  A long-dry creek bed marked the outer border of the unnamed community.  Twisted scrub and long brown grasses added to the ghostly flavour of the place, and there were no doors here, only starlight, and Maxwell's bobbing lantern.  Maxwell wore an etched frown, staring hard into the dark, and then at Treize's back, wondering.

'It should still be here.  We're looking for a little trap door.'  His kick at the scattered hay raised mouldy-smelling dust, and he drew his scarf over his mouth.  'Bring that lantern, I can't see for beans.  I could swear it was in this corner...'  With Maxwell helping, they cleared the dirt of decades, and at last unearthed the trapdoor.  The iron latch came off in Treize's hand, and it took both of them to get it raised, ancient board splintering against their skin.

'Age before beauty,' Treize said.

'You're sending me down a ladder that hasn't been used in twenty years.  In the dark.  Ahead of you?  Cool.'

Treize chuckled softly.  Maxwell heard, perhaps, because on the verge of stepping down he glanced up, and held.  But then the moment passed, and Maxwell broke their gaze and climbed.  The swaying orange globe of lamplight descended with him, and Treize kept to its outer edge, his feet finding the steps by memory.

It was not far, only ten feet or so.  The root cellar was just big enough for them both, and Maxwell curled into the far side, arms wrapped around his knees, his body blocking most of the lantern's light.  Treize helped him adjust it, drawing his knees to his chest and leaning his back comfortably against the wall of cold packed clay.  They spent a minute in silent acclimation, and if Maxwell thought him crazy, he at least kept it to himself, his face unreadable as he watched his master.  Treize found himself in no hurry.  There was a strange luxury in a place so utterly removed from humanity.  Space was too remote, too empty, and he could never experience it without the shielding of gundamium and instrumentation, beeps and lights and beams between him and the unknown.  Not so here.  There was nothing human here but the fact that it had been made by a man, no breaths but his own, no need, no purpose, and yet it felt alive.

It might have been a minute, might have been an hour when he finally spoke.  Maxwell shifted, just a small bit, when he began, and then only to put his chin on his crossed arms.

'We had one of these at the house,' Treize said, 'to keep ice and liquor.  But this one was old already when I was a boy, and empty as you see.  I would come here when I needed quiet.  It was in short supply; there were thirteen of us in the house.  Someone was always on top of me.'  He opened his eyes to look, and pointed toward Maxwell's boot.  'There, under you.  A little casket under the dirt.'

Maxwell pried at it with nimble fingers.  It was an old cigar case, tin and mostly rusted.  Maxwell brushed it off before he handed it to Treize, but Treize kept it there between their feet.  The lid squeaked, lifting.  Treize spread its contents over the dirt, one by one.  Chess pieces, poorly carved of wood and paint long chipped away, maybe a third of a full set.  A scratched marble with an eye of swirling green.  A comb with broken teeth.  The tarnished face of a watch, batteries long flat, leather wrist strap missing longer even than that.  Treize rubbed at the glass with his thumb, but it wouldn't clear.  'I had forgot most of this,' he murmured.

Maxwell overturned the comic book.  A yellowed page split and fragmented under his touch.  'How old were you when you collected these things?'

'Who knows.'  Treize attempted to burnish the watch on his trousers.  'I never knew my real father.  Perhaps the man who called himself that truly was, but I always doubted it, and more importantly my mother never confirmed it.  You would have liked her, my mother.  She was the only really strong one.  Her husband was a weak man.  A journalist, in Saint Petersburg, who wrote anti-government rhetoric in silly street pamphlets and ranted at tea-house gatherings of anarchists and the like. But a weak man, better used to tyepwriters and offices than real work.  So my mother became the provider for us all.  She got extra milk, extra meat, extra time with the tutor for me.  When I was a child-- my brothers called me Svoloch'.  Bastard.  I had a child's curiosity about my real father.  These things belong to the men I thought were the likeliest candidates.'

'Why didn't you just ask her?'

He let that stretch his lips, though he didn't raise his head for Maxwell to see his smile.  'One never asked Mother anything.  She told you or she didn't-- end of story.'

Maxwell's shoulders raised in a jagged shrug.  'I would've.'

'It wasn't something I needed to know.  Parenthood is an accidental thing.  Am I any different for not knowing?  I doubt it.'  He let the watch fall and put his shoulders to the dirt again.  'Not all mysteries need to be explained.'

'I used to wonder where I came from.'  Maxwell trailed off vaguely.  Then he shrugged again.

'Yes,' Treize said.

'Like you said, where I'm going is more important than where I came from.'

'And so we let some things go.  Put some things behind us, where they belong.  Let me put this to you bluntly.  Who else do you think I have brought here, to see this place?'

'Zechs,' Maxwell guessed immediately.

'Yes.  And Lady Une.  Even Commander Noin, though she did not join me in the root cellar.'

'Why not?'

'She was perhaps too whole already for this thought-experiment to take hold.'

'Did any of them get what you were trying to put across?'

'Une may have come the closest.  She did not want to remember the past.  But in her, it went-- awry.'  A minute of silence then, Maxwell wisely not interrupting.  It hurt to think of Une, of what he'd done, putting her away, and knowing as well he'd had to.  He went on steadily.  'But I think you will be most receptive.  You are the one who wants to hear me.'

It seemed this surprised Maxwell.  He was learning the trick of keeping his face clean of anything he didn't wish to show, but his eyes were tight and his mouth too still.

'I know you are angry with me,' Treize said.  'I know anger is an inadequate word for what you feel.  I killed Chang Wufei and now I have destroyed Quatre Winner, both your friends.  I destroyed your world.  I have imprisoned you and now I bully you and single you out and the one thing you have left that you have not had to give up is yourself, and I would change even that.  You think I only want change that makes you complict in my crimes.  I have brought you here to show that I want something more fundamental and much greater than that.  Do you understand me?'

'No,' Maxwell said, and then he licked his lips and looked inside himself, perhaps, his eyes dipping low but his shoulders loosening.  'But I'm getting used to that.'

'Mr Maxwell.'

'If I asked for this place, to use.  To make something of it.  Would you give it to me?'

He had not expected to be surprised.  He was.  He cocked his head, cautious about this strange gambit, which could not be pre-meditated, but then also could not be explained.  'Why would you ask?'

Maxwell looked up, then away again.  'It's wasted going to seed.  I hate waste.'

'Then you will have a long and unsatisfied life.'

'By your standards.'

That amused him.  He inclined his head to acknowledge the point.  'Do what you want with it,' he decided then.  He intended no more sojourns to this place in the future, and, as Maxwell had observed, it wasn't sentiment that had brought him back.  'I will have title transferred to you.  And money to start your renovations, if you wish.'

'Don't you want in on it?'

'No.  But perhaps someday you will show me what you've done with it.'

'I might.'  Maxwell's grin was sudden, startlingly white against the lantern.

There was a book in the casket, the one thing he hadn't removed.  He stroked its cover, now, thumbed the brittle binding.  He scooped up the chess pieces, lost the marble til Maxwell trapped it against his shoe.  Treize closed the lid, or as much as he could when it stuck and whined.  He dropped it back into its wedge in the dirt, and reached for the ladder to haul himself upright.

'Take it with you,' Maxwell said.

'I don't have any need of it.'

'Then let's throw it in the trash instead of leaving it in limbo.'

He acquiesed with a shrug of his own.  Maxwell put it in his duffel, crinkling it inside their paper bag with the remains of their dinner.  It would still be there when they returned to Luxembourg, he knew, and if he failed to divine the reasons why, he accepted it as a mystery that didn't require his examination.

 

**

 

The charter plane returned them to Arkhangelesk, where they would board a larger plane in the late afternoon.  There wasn't truly time for sleep, though Treize had napped on the charter and had at least advised Maxwell to do the same.  Maxwell had bags under his eyes that said he'd resisted, but that was only to be expected.

They passed the daylight hours in a hotel near the airport, a good private table by an empty stage where a band would perform by evening.  They were unremarkable, two men at a waypoint, and Treize drew no attention to himself, but by the time complimentary champagne arrived and then fresh oysters over ice and then caviar with in small gold dishes, Treize sent Maxwell to the gentleman's to freshen himself and look appropriately worthy of their fine treatment.  Maxwell returned looking brighter and smelling a little cleaner, though he still sucked down his sugared coffee with undue haste.  He wrinkled his nose when Treize indicated he could make free with the food.

'Pass,' he said.  'Aren't those fish eggs?'

Treize dished himself a cracker with caviar and radish and sat back to cross his ankles, arm over the back of his leather couch.  'Russian food is meant to prove man's superiority over the beasts by dint of bravery in swallowing them.'

'Your cholesterol must be through the roof.  Is it really necessary to have mayonnaise with everything?'  He shuddered over the English-language menu he read.  'God, it's in the soup.'

'Live well and regret not living shortly.'

Maxwell settled back on his own couch, his mouth scrunched to the side as he chewed the inside of his cheek.  His eyes swept the high ceilings with their plasterwork and paint, lingered on gold and crystal chandeliers, the tuxedoed servers who roamed the cafe and its few occupants, the old woman who stood posed at the large fireplace as if she were a character in a painting, her huge furred cloak sloping from her bowed shoulders and her trembling arthritic fingers locked about an ornate cigarette holder.  A group of teenagers passed through the lobby, their jean coats and wild spiked hair as toothy as their obnoxiously loud chatter.  Maxwell likely couldn't understand their dialect, but he frowned after them.  Treize wondered if he were wistful.  He was not any older than the girls who tottered on their first heeled shoes or the boys who stopped to kiss, revelling in the attention they got for their public lewdness.

'What happened to your family?' he asked suddenly.

Treize sipped his champagne.  'You've read my biography.'

'You've said it's all a fairy-tale.'

'Not that.'

'Tell me anyway.'

The cut crystal of the glasses was really very fine.  It accented the gold of its contents, not obscuring it.  Treize sipped again.  'My father died when I was young.  He didn't have the constitution for Siberian winters.  My mother died only last year.  There was a gas leak in her house.  I had it investigated, of course, but if it was other than accidental I will never know.  She was sixty-eight.'  He turned his glass by the stem, twirling it slowly.  'My eldest brother went into the military.  It was his escape from exile.  Duke Dermail provided a word for him, bought him an officership.  He was killed in action in D Area in 183.  Arkady followed him and died in 188.  A pipe bomb in his barracks.  Zhenya was different; he was like our father.  Bright, very sensitive.  We all loved him.  Mother especially.  He went to university in Heidelberg, to study medicine.  I think he would have been a very fine doctor-- he had a way with people.  He took his own life.  There was no note.  No indication why.'  He finished his champagne in one swallow and put the glass aside.  'Nicho was the opposite of Zhenya.  He was a monster.  He tortured small animals.  He raped at least one woman, and I have no doubt there were others who never came forward.  He died in a duel.  He was always short-tempered and overconfident.  I believe the young man who killed him spent a year in prison for it.  I send him a case of wine on the anniversary every year.  It was a service to humanity.  Even Mother would only say he lasted longer than she expected.'

'You don't have any family left?'

'A few distant cousins.  Lady Dorothy Catalonia is my nearest living relative.  You know, of course, what became of her grandfather.'

'I know she got house arrest for what she did with White Fang.'  Maxwell challenged him, then, with hard eyes and a harder mouth.  'Why did you let her live?'

'She was a girl.'

'Then why didn't you force her into Preventers like you did with us?  Isn't this supposed to be some kind of rehabilitation for teenaged terrorists?'

'I don't believe anyone would trust my cousin with weapons access,' Treize said.  'Rehabilitation can only take place on fertile ground.'

'Why did you kill Wufei?'

So that was what had been going on in Maxwell's churning brain for so many hours.  It hit Treize like a blow, a genuine shock, and yet-- and yet.  Part of him was surprised Maxwell had waited this long to bring it up again.

'I can't bring him back,' Treize said.

'Would you, if you could?  Or is he just another body in your past, rotting out there because you can't be bothered to think about him any more?'

Treize lifted the sweating bottle of champagne from its icy bucket, and poured another glass for himself.  'Please tell the front desk I should like a car in an hour, will you.  Let us be timely for our flight home.'

Maxwell stood.  He hesitated, then, or didn't move, at least; Treize fixed himself an oyster with marinade and minced relish, and sat back with the shell cupped between forefinger and thumb.  He swallowed it back, and patted his lips with his cloth napkin.

'And pass my compliments to their chef,' Treize added.

Maxwell's boot left a clod of dirt, he struck so hard on the marble tile stomping away.  But when Treize looked toward the front desk, a minute later, Maxwell was only watching him, no glares or frowns or mental anguish.  Just watching, and he didn't look away when Treize watched him back.


	20. Zechs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

The throne room was exactly as he remembered.

The chandelier was a replica, though Zechs had been informed that several of the original Orrefors crystal teardrops had been retained. They were irreplaceable remnants of innocent days-- the main factory in Sweden had been used by Resistance during the war, and a well-placed munitions target had ended that problem and enhanced the value of several collectors' pieces. The carpet was a reproduction as well, replicated from existing pictures and notes maintained by the major domo, now deceased, but whose household accounts had been of great help in the restoration of Sanq Palace.

The long hall was panelled in woods reclaimed from other rooms, hung with tapestries and portraits that had likewise survived the initial assault on the kingdom. Staff had rescued quite a lot when the Palace burnt, and had responded freely and loyally to the call to return any relics to their home. Zechs had kept a quiet eye on the market and he'd ruthlessly used his position to seize goods which ought not to have been sold, though that would be more difficult now. He didn't imagine Treize would scruple much to find excuses to arrest those who couldn't be bullied, but it was likely he'd have to bend his treasury toward the recovery of Sanq's property. He detested the thought. But there were things he would pay to have returned to their home. Zechs did not scruple, either, not in this.

His father's throne. He curved his hand over the carved lions in the armrests. They had had eyes of ruby, once. There were faint marks of the knives that had pried out the gems, though experts had been brought in to fill the gouges and polish them smooth. The deliberate destruction of the royal seal that decorated the chairback had been a much harder fix, and the scars to the delicately gilded wood pained Zechs. But he would not have it replaced. Sanq's suffering was part of its history. His history.

'You still haven't sat in it,' a low voice observed, from his left.

Heero. He stood beneath the stained glass window that lit the steps before the throne and the smaller chair that would oneday seat his queen. He was not particularly near that chair, but Zechs smiled grimly anyway. Heero had absolutely no sense of metaphor. Neither the shaft of pale light aglow on his dark hair nor the contrast of his lean and dangerous body to that chair meant for a smiling placid wife great with child suited him. And yet.

Zechs swept his cape wide and gathered it in his arm. He turned to face the hall. In one hundred eighty-- one hundred seventy-nine-- days he would walk that carpet runner, beneath that glittering chandelier, take those deep steps to this throne, and he would look out upon his people as they crowned him king. It was only six months, and the time felt both unbearably distant and terrifyingly short. In practicality it would mean a great many decisions to be made. Sanq was his. And as it was his to protect, it was also his to rule, and he would have to show his people he meant to be a different kind of ruler than had his father been. He'd waited his entire life for this. If his hands trembled, he was not entirely sure why.

He sat on his throne, curled his hands along those lions' manes from the right angle, and found they fit his hands perfectly. His pointer and middle rested along the holes were rubies would be, when he found them again.

Heero removed his hand from his gun, for a moment. He didn't bow. He inclined his head, or perhaps just tilted it. It was a long time later when he said, 'Your Highness will be late to supper if we don't leave now.'

'Yes,' Zechs said, but didn't move. Not just yet.

 

**

 

'Elections next month are expected to be tight,' the reporter said, nervously reading from her notepad.  'The Conservatives are polling high and they're expected to take at least fifteen seats.  Do you, uh, have any comment on that, your Highness?'

'I of course look forward to working with the Legislature no matter its composition,' Zechs answered.  He smiled graciously for the camera.  'I take pride in our young country not least because I know how dedicated the men and women of its civil service are.  Those who leave behind their careers and their families for politics do so out of zeal to better Sanq.'

'You've been hinting in various interviews that you'll be introducing several royal Commissions which are expected to produce legislative proposals.'

'Royal Commissions can of course suggest a course of action,' Zechs corrected.  'It would be up the Legislature to pursue those findings.'

'But your Highness can take a much more straightforward course through Royal Prerogative,' the reporter interrupted, almost tripping on his words.  'Your sister Princess Relena openly refused to issue any actions without the express consent of the majority party of the Legislature, but that's not required.  Do you have plans to take a more active approach?'

Heero stepped forward.  He was positioned beyond the view of the cameraman, but within the reporter's eyeline, and though all he did was make sure she saw him and tap his watch, she paled.  Heero dropped his hands to hang casually from his belt, his face politely blank, but he didn't blink, at all, and it clearly unnerved her.

'I-- uh,' the reporter faltered.  She fumbled her pad and pen.  'I-- thank you for your time, Prince Milliardo.  Your people, uh, we look forward to--'

'I look forward to getting to know my kingdom,' Zechs replied smoothly.  'My exile was a painful one.  We will heal together.'

When the door shut behind her and her crew, Zechs rose from his chair and ripped off his coronet.  He had a wretched headache; a full day of bright lights shining his face and repetitive questions all designed to wring some slip or mistake out of him had kept him tense.  Moodily he dropped his elbows onto the sill of a window that overlooked the gardens.  It was a stormy day, and there'd be no chance of escaping for privacy later.  His first State Banquet was tomorrow, and there were somehow an endless progression of details that needed his personal approval.

Heero was, in fact, behind him with a fresh packet of paperwork that had come in just before the last reporter; he laid it out in neat stacks on the lunch table and posed the pen for signature, but when he came to fetch Zechs from the window he brought not the work but a cup of tea.  Zechs grunted sour thanks and accepted the dainty porcelain saucer and cup, raising it to his lips purely out of habit.  He choked to find it was not tea after all-- or, rather, tea with a little extra.  Whiskey and lemon and a sweet chase of honey.

'Are you sure liquor is wise?' he asked drily, taking his drink to the couch and relaxing back.  He nudged a cushion with his elbow til it settled where he wanted it in the crook of his neck.

'It's just a splash.'  Heero brought him food, as well, crudites spread with cold chicken and tarragon.  'Eat,' he advised.  'You're getting cranky.'

'I'm hardly.'

'You are.  And you're getting nearer to showing it to them.'  Heero's nod encompassed the long line of journalists who waited beyond the door.  The press junket was necessary, at least til he was a more familiar figure.  And the questions had all been carefully cleared through both his security and his public relations staff-- Treize's public relations staff, on loan through the transition.  He'd known the two men from Academy and trusted them not to actively harm his image by letting a sly jab through, though he naturally suspected they were far more alert to any pointed attacks on Preventers, the war, the Field Marshal, the various interests behind the ESUN's swirling maw of money, conflicting agenda, and occasional fist-fights.

Heero refreshed his cup with real tea, this time, though still sweetened with honey, which adequately eased his headache.  He also brought Zechs a shortbread biscuit, his favourite, to which Zechs reacted as if he were indeed a child in need of a bribe to get through the afternoon, rolling his eyes at Heero's nursemaiding.  'How many more of these?'

'Twelve,' Heero said.  'We're past the major networks and most of the partisan programmes.  Tomorrow is newsprint.  Two national, four regional, three Capital, the major social democrat and the major conservative.  Christian conservative.  Business conservative.  One that's only on the internetwork.  They're new, but Relena gave them an interview last year, and they have a relatively good reputation in the press.  Conservative.'

'I see we're courting the new Legislature after all,' he muttered caustically.  'The plaudits and the glad-handing won't last through the first budget fight.'

'You're not supposed to answer questions about the budget.'

'Yes, thank you, Heero, I somehow forgot how to read and then also forgot how to listen to your constant reminders.'

'Cranky,' Heero said, but there was a ghost of something that might possibly have been a smile on his mouth, and Zechs sulked until Heero brought him another biscuit.

He signed his way through a half-dozen issues, Royal Assent on the newest Banking and Customs Act, a final draft of a Recognition of the heroism of medical staff from the Royal University who'd helped suppress tuberculosis and smallpox outbreaks in the refugee camps, and a carefully worded request for additional research in support of the proposed Protection of Genetic Patents in Agriculture Act, which he did not intend to sign and wanted tabled for at least another year, when the current head of that Committee would be out of the seat and replaced with someone friendlier to his interests.  He paused on the packet labelled only 'HR'.  'What's this?' he asked Heero.

'You need to select a major domo,' Heero said.  'You should have had one before you came.  You can't keep relying on the staff in place.'

'It's a low priority,' Zechs dismissed it, but when he would have pushed away the paper, Heero stopped it with a finger.

'It's not,' Heero said.  'You need better coordination between support teams.  And someone who can do events like this.  I'm not qualified.'

'I have told you before I want you with me.'

'My presence causes problems,' Heero said, unmoved.  When Zechs shook his head angrily, Heero only waited him out, the packet still pinned in place to the table.  'I still represent Preventers.  You need a clean break.  And the press may not ask questions to your face, but they do speculate, and that means you're not controlling the message.  Give them less to see and they'll have less to fabricate.'

Treize had told him the same thing.  He had ignored it then, resisting Treize's constant superiority in politics and resisting his even more constant manipulation-- why had Treize allowed him to take Heero at all, if he didn't plan to keep Heero rooted at Zechs' side agitating for whatever the newest scheme of self-promotion was?  If Treize was genuinely altruistic in his advice Zechs would eat his cravat.  But he'd seen more than a few of the reporters eyeing Heero in recognition.  They knew him.  And they noted his presence beside the royal person.

'Anyone who worked under Relena can't be trusted,' Zechs said, the same thing he'd said before.

'Madam Sigrid worked for your father.'  Heero turned the pages to an elegantly typed CV and a modest picture of a woman in her sixties, grey hair pinned severely about a plain face with large ears.  'We've confirmed she's a relation, on your father's side.  A second cousin, twice removed.  Distant enough to have escaped the massacre of your family's line, close enough to vett reliably.  She's loyal and she's experienced.  Her father was major domo to your grandather.  She was your mother's chief of staff before she married.  Widowed, now, no children, political connections are all respectable.  Wealthy enough through her husband not to be susceptible to bribes.'

'You're selling too hard,' Zechs noted.  'What's wrong with her?'

'She's willing to come back, but not permanently.  Til she can train a replacement.'  Heero let her picture drop.  'It's a good proposal.  You'll have competence til you can select someone personally loyal to you.'

'Do whatever you like, Heero.'  He took his tea with him back to his chair, and sat, arranging his formal coat to hang properly when he unbuttoned it, and he settled the coronet on his head, sweeping his fringe away from the diamond in the centre.  'Bring in the next.  I want to be finished with this nonsense before supper.  Heero.'  The young man paused on his way to the door, and turned to fully face Zechs.  Blank face.  If Heero had ever had a real expression in his life, it hadn't left a mark on him.  'My father disbanded the Royal Guard before I was born,' Zechs said then.  'We will not leave ourselves so unprotected.  We will reinstate the Guard.'

'Yes, your Highness,' Heero replied courteously, though a dark eyebrow twitched at Zechs' sudden assumption of the kingly plural.  'You don't have an infantry, your Highness.'

'We can draw membership from the Home Guard.  And the Horse Guard-- a lot of second sons with no prospects.  They'll need training, but they'll be grateful at a chance to gain honours and positions of influence.  Their families will provide material support if we hang enough ceremonial grandeur on the business.'  Zechs finished his tea and gestured sharply.  Heero took the cup obediently, returning it to the tray with the remains of luncheon.  'Suitable ribbons and medals and other awards.  You'll form the King's Life Guard.  Promote Kalle Mortensen as your Corporal Major.  Get me a list of names for the rest by morning.  You'll be Officer In Charge.  You're qualified for that, aren't you.'

Heero didn't have an immediate reply to that.  His mouth moved, or didn't, quite, and he didn't blink, but Zechs was no untried television pundit, and he didn't quail.

'Preventers,' Heero said then, not quite asking.

'Damn Preventers,' Zechs said.

Heero bowed.  'Yes, your Highness,' he said, and this time Zechs was sure of it.  Heero smiled, just a little bit, as he turned away to open the door.

'Prince Milliardo is ready for the next,' Heero called down the hall, and chatter died.  'We're running over schedule.  Please have your equipment at the ready; we can no longer allow additional time for set-up.  We'll keep strictly to fifteen minutes.'

'You said we had fifteen minutes for questions!' someone protested, but Heero was already ushering in the group from Channel OFO90, and said only, 'Fifteen minutes total,' in a tone that brooked no argument and suggested dire consequences to anyone unwise enough to test his mettle.

Zechs pressed a finger to his lips to his own smile.  'Good afternoon,' he greeted the reporters graciously, and allowed them to press his hand, each of them bowing over him.  'Good afternoon.  Whenever you're ready.'

 

**

 

The bed was the single most uncomfortable piece of furniture he'd ever slept on, and he'd spent years as a pilot on creaky cots, uncushioned bedrolls on the ground, even propped upright for days at a time in his mobile suit.  No matter how many pillows he piled around him, he sank into a rut, or found a spring digging into his back, or lost his feet over the edge of the too-short mattress, or made the whole thing quake and shudder as he tossed and turned.

And the clock was driving him mad.  It had seemed quiet enough in daytime, but he spent no waking hours in the Royal Bedchamber, and now the thing was deafening.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  And it had a definite lag near the twelve, and sped to catch up at the six.  Antique garbage.

It was near to three in the morning when he surrendered.  He ripped the quilted duvet from the bed and carried it with a pillow to the carpet.  The fire in the hearth had been well banked and was nearly out, but resusitated with a few sticks of wood from the basket.  Zechs angled the screen to keep the worst of the light from his eyes and rolled himself in his blanket on the floor.  He hadn't made it a single night in the bed since arriving in Sanq.

He dozed, for a while, not quite fully asleep.  He could hear footsteps in the hall beyond his suite.  Doors opening and closing.  The palace was never truly at rest, night-shift staff at work prepping breakfast, performing light maintenance in places too obtrusive for daylight work.  The remodelling was not quite finished, and Zechs had changed quite a lot of what Relena had started, determined not to live in her shadow even in so far as decorations were concerned, even if he paid the expense from his own pocket.  Too many years with Treize had given him a taste of sumptuous texture and radiant colour.  He would have red, not pallid white.  Handpainted chinoiserie wallpaper, as close a replica as could be found of the vivid scarlet peonies his mother had favoured.  He wanted a vase of peonies for his bedroom, but he kept forgetting to request it.  He wanted their perfume in these rooms, the way he remembered it.  He would remember to send some to Relena, too.  She wouldn't remember, but he could tell her about that, how the scent had been everywhere, exotic and comforting at once.  He'd have an entire hothouse dedicated to the blushing pink blooms once again.

'Zechs.'

It was Heero, crouched at his side, a hand on Zechs' knee.  It was still dark, but his fire had died again, and he had a crick in his shoulder from laying on his side.  He rubbed at his eyes and found them gritty.

'Come back to bed,' Heero said, and helped him up, wrapping him in the duvet when he shivered.  The bed whinged at their combined weight, but Heero stayed on the edge, a dim form sitting up over him.  Zechs shoved at the pillows, nesting himself.  Heero put a hand on his forehead and stroked.  That was better.  He closed his eyes.

'Stay,' he mumbled, slurred with sleep.

'There's already rumour,' Heero whispered.  'You can't afford it.'  But a callused thumb traced his brow, his jawline, his lower lip.  Zechs caught it as it swiped the vee of his upper lip, nipping with his teeth, and it dragged, wet, along the edge of his tongue.  Zechs caught at his wrist and pulled him.  Heero came with muscular grace, landing very precisely with an elbow on the safe side of a pillow, his weight resting on Zechs' legs, but Zechs rolled him and fit his palm to the warm bulge at Heero's crotch, fit his nose to the warm familiar crook of Heero's neck.  A hand moved in his hair, lifting it away.  Then Heero slipped away, off the other side of the bed, and he took his candle with him, leaving Zechs alone in the dark, unsure if he'd only imagined it.

He pressed his hand to his own erection.  If it had been a dream, it was a good start.  He slid his fingers beneath the loose tie of his cotton trousers, to the edge of crinkly hair at his groin.  He couldn't see the face of the clock, could only hear it ticking endlessly.  The servants wouldn't venture in til six, at least.  He wasn't sure what time it was.  Damn them anyway, hemming in his every move.  He could hardly piss without someone offering to hold his dick for him.  If someone walked in on him relieving himself a better way, no doubt they'd only leap to help.

He licked his palm and rubbed the shaft of his erection, curled his fingers over the tip and tugged.  His head felt light and he wasn't quite connected to all his limbs.  Clumsy and not truly awake he petted himself, rolled his soft ballsac, slipped his fingers up to his chest, his stomach.  Imagined a soft hot mouth on him everywhere he touched.  He wet his hand again and if it wasn't quite enough it was hypnotic slumberous pleasure.  Head bobbing up and down in his lap, hair twining over his knuckles.  Hands flat on his thighs keeping his legs wide.  A teasing finger, breaking down his pride, caressing only, only at first, then breaching him, finding that spot-- that spot-- that spot only Duo knew how to find, and Duo looked up at him, eyes glinting over slick lips and laughing softly around him--

A fuzzy glow of satisfaction rewarded him, and he wiped his hand on the sheet, rolled onto his stomach to let the cool pillows relieve his whirling head.  Good.  That was good.  He couldn't even hear the clock like this.  Maybe if he got rid of the clock he'd be able to sleep in the bed.

He let himself drift off, and didn't move til Heero came to fetch him for his bath at half six.


	21. Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'You're slagging off,' Khushrenada called back.

'I am not.'

'You're drawing down my time.' Khushrenada waited at the corner for him, jogging in place. His grey tee was soaked with sweat on the chest and pits, his hair slick with it, but it was a glow of rather disgusting health. Duo dug a fist into the stitch in his side, trying not to pant like a hopeless idiot. He dipped to one knee to pretend to re-knot his laces, but Khushrenada was grinning at him, and he gave up the pretence.

'Lagging,' he said, wiping his streaming face on his sleeve. 'Not slagging.'

'Quite sure?'

'Quite sure.' He had to shove on the pavement to get himself back up, and he tottered a little. 'For real, we're not done yet?'

'Two more kilometres. Come now. Adrian managed without complaint.'

'Is that a challenge?'

'Adrian is seven stone soaking wet,' Khushrenada said. He touched his toes with absolutely no bend in the knees, planted his hands on his hips. 'It most certainly is a challenge. Two more.'

'You know I got, like, three hours of sleep,' Duo complained, heard himself whining, and sighed. 'It takes me an hour to get off base into town, you know, and I already have to do hours of PT every day.'

'Simple enough solution.' Khushrenada apparently decided they were done standing around, and took off again, though his pace was less punishing, specially on Duo's shorter legs. Duo still kept just behind him-- he wanted both eyes on the man at all times. 'I'm sure Adrian turned in his keys,' Khushrenada was saying. 'Check with Colonel Lachnova when we get back. She'll issue the housing forms.'

'Wait, what?'

'If the issue is transportation and time, we eliminate the issue.' Khushrenada gestured left, and they left the street toward an alley that was clearly going uphill. Duo put his head down and made an effort to keep up as the Field Marshal charged ahead. 'It's not a large space-- they allocate by rank, and you have none. But it will be private, which should be preferrable to your barracks accommodation. En suite.'

'If I'd known there was a room I'd've knocked Bancroft off way earlier.' Duo saw the puddle a moment late and splashed right into it, soaking his socks. He gritted his teeth. 'If I live in town I'm going to have to run every morning?'

'Every morning,' Khushrenada confirmed, entirely too cheerful, considering dawn was at least an hour off still. 'Your sergeant didn't provide you with the updated duty roster?'

Duo eyed the play of muscles in Khushrenada's calves as they pounded up the cobbled streets.  Luxembourg's residents were evidently unimpressed with Khushrenada's morning runs-- Duo thought at least one house they passed threw on a light for as long as it took to draw the lace curtains on them.  Would've been a golden opportunity for a sniper.  Hell, given it was only the two of them, had been only Khushrenada and Bancroft, before-- and Bancroft might have been more than seven stone, but not all that much more-- hell, a kid with a switchblade could've skipped down the lane and offed the most important man on the planet.

'No,' he said belatedly.  'There's an updated roster?'

'Your duties have changed, have they not?  Your authorisations and base access needs as well.  Your sergeant should have suggested the rehousing as soon as the paperwork came through, in fact.'  There was a short pause as they cleared the row of townhouses and crested the hill.  A small municipal park bounded off by a low row of stacked stones occupied the hilltop, and Khushrenada continued right on course, leaping the stones in one bound and landing in mushy sand on the other side.  Duo didn't leap.  He sat his ass on the stone and swung his legs over, judged his landing, and trudged through the muddy sod instead.  There was a public fountain, and they both drank, wiping down their faces and limbs.  Duo shivered.  He'd have preferred a hot shower to an icy bath.

'They would've let me go on struggling,' Duo said.  His breath was steaming in the wintery morning air.  He dried his hands on his shorts.  'On the assumption that I'd never tell you because I didn't know it was supposed to be different.'

Khushrenada nodded once.  'So it seems.'

'Great group of people you've got working for you.'

'Do you want me to address it?' Khushrenada asked, stretching one long arm across his chest, then the other.

That seemed like a genuine offer.  'Seemed' being operative.  Duo bit back his immediate instinctual 'no', and thought it through, trying to catch the sharp angles.  He chewed his chapped lower lip.  'No,' he decided.  'Nothing comes of it.  I'm out of their power now anyway.  It was dumb and mean-spirited, but most pranks are.  And I win, don't I.  All those ass--'  He cut himself off from cussing.  'People want is access, and they're peeved I've got it.  Besides.  If you punished them right away, they wouldn't have the joy of waiting for the hammer to fall.  Let 'em stew and wonder when I'll tattle.'

'Welcome to politics,' Khushrenada said.  He doused the back of his neck with a handful of water from the fountain, and flicked droplets at Duo's face.  'Onward.  Stop _lagging_ , Mr Maxwell.'

'Asshole,' Duo muttered, and dragged his aching limbs into motion.

 

 

It was probably the shortest form Duo had ever filled out in his tenure in Preventers.  His name, his badge number, and his signature taking responsibility for the new keys.  He had no old keys, since he'd been in barracks since being stationed at Headquarters.  He got the new set immediately, and Colonel Lachnova, a surprisingly chatty lady with a ready smile and hands that wove through the air while she regaled him with stories about the old building, even showed him a shortcut through the back stairs to his new room.

His own room.  It was sort of overwhelming, when he was suddenly standing alone in it.  Alone.  Hell, he hadn't been alone in-- what, three years.  The silence was-- overwhelming.  He had a fucking window.

He went from panic to joy in about the space of a heartbeat.  He flipped the locks and threw open the shutters and laughed giddily at his view of a brick wall across about ten steps of backalley.  The drip of a nearby gutter would probably annoy him in the future, but the sheer novelty of it was glorious.  His own window.

His own everything.  A bed that wasn't bunked.  His own cupboard.  His own little desk, if he wanted to bring work home.  Home.  Jesus Christ, it was almost enough to make him pray.  He could control the lights.  He stood at the switch panel for an increasingly silly game of just touching the button.  On.  Off.  On.  Off.  He had a rug.  It was scuffed and threadbare but it was his.  Blue with arabesque squiggles in silver thread.  He liked blue.  He'd have liked puce if the fucking rug was puce, because it was his god-damn rug.

He was still riding that high when he trekked back to base that afternoon to collect his belongings.  He not only had new digs, he had access to the fleet of Preventers vehicles.  He could drive whenever he wanted.  Well, whenever he had a reason.  Even if the reason was just that he only had an hour for lunch and the Field Marshal wasn't really generous enough to give him a whole afternoon off just to pick up his clothes from the barracks.  Still, he was swaggering a bit, even accounting for not knowing where any of the car parks were and losing ten minutes to back-tracking.  He stopped at the Mess to turn in his meal card, more or less resisting the urge to fling the bit of plastic in someone's face and modestly dropping it into the mail slot outside the Admin Office.  He gave the door to his bunk a little flip with the wrist as he flung it open, relishing the bang and rattle as it hit the plain concrete wall.  Last time.

Sheets he bundled in a ball for the laundry cart.  Limp cotton pillow he left on the bare mattress.  He emptied his locker into his duffel, stuffing it to the brim.  He left the locker hanging open and ripped down the strip of tape with his name.  That erased his entire career at Preventers.  Well, the most uncomfortable bits of it, anyway.  He fired the wad of tape into a corner.  He'd never have clean-up duty in here again, never have to scrub a bootprint with a toothbrush, never have to shower with a hundred other bodies again.  He chucked his bent slip of bar soap over his shoulder.  Never have to be responsible for checking the weight of his shower utilities every night.  Never have to account for the whiteness of his socks.  Never have to sleep with one eye open, in case someone tried to pull some kind of--

A hand on his elbow scared the shit out of him.  He hit his head on his locker, whirling to drop into a protective fighting crouch.  Hurt the other end of his head, dropping it back to the metal doors.  'Trowa,' he said.  'The fuck, man.'

'Quietly,' Trowa said.  He'd shut them in-- Duo hadn't noticed, so absorbed in his own business.  The barracks were empty, this time of day, but sometimes the officers came through on inspection, and the angle they were standing they wouldn't immediately notice if someone was looking through the door's glass pane.  Duo eased back into his crouch, feeling in his pocket for anything that would work as a weapon.  His new keys.  He threaded them through his knuckles.

'I'm not here for that,' Trowa said.

'Good to know.'  Duo didn't take him at his word, but he kept his keys at the ready as he loosened his stance.  'Um, did you follow me?'

'I saw you at Mess.'  Trowa's head tilted away, toward a noise in the corridor.  When nothing followed, he went on.  'You're moving out of here?'

'To the Rue Notre-Dame offices.'  Trowa stood between him and his bunk.  True, he didn't look particularly poised to attack, arms hanging, knees locked.  'Effective immediately,' Duo said.  'And I'm not apologising for it.'

A faint sneer curled Trowa's mouth down.  'No?'

'No, Trowa.  I'm just trying to survive, like you and Quatre are.'

The blatant untruth of that statement fell into the chill space between them.  Duo's mouth worked, but he'd spat that out so fast the whopper in the middle of it had just sort of happened.  He hadn't lied.  Not intentionally.  Not about himself, at least.  The rest of it hung there, unadorned.

'Is he okay?' Duo asked finally.  'I haven't seen him since.'

'No,' Trowa said.

He was slow on the uptake this morning.  'You want me to do something about that?'

Worse, Trowa was immediately nodding.  'It's all over the base,' Trowa said.  'You're Khushrenada's personal aide.  And you knew what was happening with Hibiscus.  You tried to get to Quatre, that morning.'

This time Duo checked the doors, both the one nearest and the emergency exit.  'What the hell do _you_ know about-- that?' he hissed, and pulled Trowa into the dubious shelter of the far bunks, yanking down a sheet from the top bunk to hide their bodies in the corner.  'And how do you know?'

'I know enough,' was all Trowa said, finally rediscovering his discretion.  He plucked the button of his shirt and removed a tiny roll of paper.  Stretched to its full length it was shorter than a single joint of his finger, and only just as wide, cramped with tiny writing in smeared pencil.  'This was in the meatloaf.  He didn't see it-- I switched our plates.  You know he's eating off the buffet again.  Yesterday it was ground glass.  I'd prefer the glass to this.'

Duo tilted the paper to the light.  It was code, but not especially complex.  A basic Caesar cipher.  'They want a meeting?' Duo guessed.  'There's... nine of them?'  He looked up sharply.  'Nine?  They've been arresting people for weeks.  How are there still nine on base?'

'Nineteen,' Trowa said.

That shook him.  'Does he have names?'

'I don't think so.  You know how it is.  He recruited some, they recruited others.  Obviously it was a successful model.'  Trowa intercepted the paper on its way to Duo's pocket.  'No.  They'll take Quatre.  If he's the only ringleader left, they'll arrest him.'

'I can keep his name out of it--'

'No,' Trowa said forcefully.  'Duo.  It's not just that they're trying to get to him.  I think he's going to try to get to them.  This is the third message I've found.  Something changed.  Duo--'  Trowa breathed with difficulty, frustration evident in the tight press of his jaw.  Duo bit his lip hard enough to hurt.  He surrendered the bit of paper, and Trowa shredded it.

'You're wasting yourself,' Duo said.  'No.  Listen to me.  Quatre too.  Just-- resisting everything, all the time.  Of course Hibiscus is coming after you.  They know you're not-- integrating.'

It had been years since they'd exchanged a word.  He'd forgot how Trowa could look totally through you.  He'd forgot how Trowa would say exactly the right thing to remind you he spared exactly no brain power on your existence.  'They didn't bring us here to use our talents,' Trowa said, no particular emphasis on that last, but leaving Duo in no doubt whatsoever what he meant.

Duo was the one grinding his jaws, now.  'That's because they don't think we're willing.'

'I'm not.'

'Then you're going to die young and for no good reason.  The world changed.  That doesn't mean you get to give up.'

'It didn't change,' Trowa said.  'We lost.  We're not all lucky enough to be _noticed_.'

'Luck has nothing to do with it, Trowa.  I'm working my ass off.'

'Then work for him,' Trowa said.  'Because if I think he might try to reach out to these people I'll give him the plate with the glass in it.  I'd rather him in hospital than in that kind of danger.'

Why he said it, he had no idea.  It seemed to come from outside himself.  Trowa had gone in focus, and Duo felt out of it.  Far distant.  'It doesn't occur to you he might win,' he said.

This time, Trowa saw him.  They stared at each other.  If not for the sound of footsteps beyond the door, it might have gone on that way forever.  But boots marched up to the door and then past it, and Trowa glanced automatically.

'I'll think of something.'  Duo inhaled, and it was over, just like that.  He twitched the sheet back onto the bunk, left the corner.  Shouldered his duffel and closed his locker, grabbed the pair of boots that hadn't fit in the bag.  Trowa was at the door, carefully peering out.  'Clear?'

'Clear.'

'Trowa.'  Duo reached.  He only registered it was Trowa's hand he held when Trowa tried to pull away, and then he only held tighter.  'Listen to me.  I'm doing all this shit for a reason.  Okay?'

He didn't wait for an answer.  He threw open the door, and he left.

 

 

He stamped the dossier and moved it to the 'closed' pile for filing later.  The quarter-hour intell dump was due in a few minutes, and he was bound to his desk til then.  The phone was silent.  No-one had come by in hours.

He touched his pocket, and slipped his hand in.  His keys were there, warm from contact with his bodyheat.  It was weird.  A weird day.  It had all been one day, hadn't it.

He was on his feet without thinking about it.  He'd never really looked at the bookshelves.  Old and battered, not nice enough for anyone but an aide.  Half the finish was stripped off, and there was a big scratch on the left side, like it had been scraped on the banister on its way up the stairs.  There was glass in the doors, round panes of an odd green, like beer bottles.  Duo squinted.  It was beer bottles.  The bumps and bubbles were all in circles, and when he traced them with his thumb he was sure.  Beer bottles.  Talk about upcycling.

The books were in worse shape than the cabinet.  Lots of old paperbacks.  A run of hardbacks with the same covers-- some kind of encyclopaedia.  King Arthur.  Fancy man in silly-looking armour that would probably strangle you soon as protect.  Mail and plate?  The same person who designed some of the stupider mobile suits had probably got their inspiration from this.  The chick clinging to the knight had Duo's hairstyle.  Duo tugged at his braid.  He shoved the book back where he'd taken it.

The computer beeped.  It was the intell dump.  Duo slid into his chair and scanned the incoming.  Shit, he didn't remember-- no.  Okay.  TS was Top Secret-- no, Time Sensitive.  MEO-- eyes only.  Okay.  He should probably have taken notes when Bancroft was covering all of this.  HBS--

He tapped his pen on the desktop.  Hibiscus.

Shit.  Okay.

He knocked and let himself in.  Khushrenada was actually working, though he looked like he had a headache and one of the bar glasses had migrated to his desk.  There were tinny arguing voices emerging from his phone in a language that definitely wasn't English and probably wasn't just one other dialect, either.  Khushrenada was reading something on his computer screen, his chin propped in his hand.  When Duo brought him the printouts, he tiltled his glasses down and glanced it over.  'Thank you,' he said absently.  'Could you please ring the kitchen, I'd like a sandwich or something similar before supper.  Whatever is simplest.'

'Sure.'  Duo took the glass back to the bar and filled it with juice and fresh ice.  'Have a minute?' he asked, returning it to the marble coaster at the Field Marshal's elbow.

Khushrenada tapped the phone's mute button with his pen.  'What is it?'

'I'll come back.'

'This is likely to go on another hour.  What is it, Mr Maxwell?'

'Quatre Winner is dying.'

Khushrenada took him for literal, of course.  He was on his feet in a rush, glasses clattering to the keyboard.

'Oh, and thanks for the new quarters,' Duo added breezily.  'Major improvement.'

Khushrenada came up short at that.  He blinked once, and the tension in his shoulders released.  Then returned.  He sat, picking up his eyeglasses and perching them on his nose again.  'Perhaps,' the Field Marshal said tightly, 'some explanation is in order.'

'Nah, finish your phone call.'  Duo saluted and spun on his heel.  'Fifteen minutes til the next dump.  Fourteen.'

'Mr Maxwell.'  Khushrenada sighed sharply.  'I believe I told you to have a report for me at 1700.'

'It's in your IN box.'

'And did your duties end after you turned in this report?'

'I'm standing here,' Duo pointed out.

'You should be sitting at your desk out there.  There are a half-dozen calls to be returned, and you need to familiarise yourself with a new set of protocols.  And then we can talk about Quatre Winner's imminent demise.'

That was a little lame, as lectures went.  There weren't really calls, and Duo was fairly sure he hadn't actually made a mistake in protocol yet, but he'd wrongfooted the man and it deserved a take-down.  More importantly, he had a promise it hadn't fallen on deaf ears.  Duo saluted again, for real this time, and went back to his desk with a hammering heartbeat.

Time got a very sticky flow, for the next forty minutes.  He tapped his fingers, his toes, pulled out his hair elastic and rebound it, chewed a pencil in half, took in two more packets of printouts for the quarter-hour intell dump, remembered to order the sandwich but forgot to go get it when the kitchen didn't bring it up right away.  He scurried off to fetch when they rang to ask if he still wanted it, and then hesitated to interrupt again, so he just carried it as far as the table in front of the hearth and scurried back to his desk without looking at the Field Marshal.  The suddenly everything was running late and he scrambled to catch up.  He was kicking the printer for sticking on some kind of inane and unknowable error when Khushrenada called for him.

Guard up, now.  Khushrenada awaited him from a position of strength, hands folded on the desk, glasses safely to one side.  Shades wide so the full afternoon sun was glaring into Duo's eyes, when he took parade rest before the big desk.

'Please sit,' Khushrenada said, and Duo thought that was nice enough til he realised it put him lower than Khushrenada's eye level and he'd given up the last little sliver of power he had on his side.  He pressed his fists together between his knees.  'If it's important enough to blurt out, it's important enough to move to the head of the queue,' Khushrenada said, quite urbane and calm, but there was steel in his eyes.

Duo took his cue from that, and discarded most of his argument.  He could feel sweat under his collar.  'He's not cut out for captivity.  Or ridicule.  Or finding razor blades and balls of shit in his dinner plate.'

'Hazing happens,' Khushrenada said, unmoved.

'Yeah, it does.  And some people don't survive it.  Unlike the rest of us, Winner's no soldier.  He won't.  He needs a task he can find meaning in.  Or within six months I'll be writing a press release about how the former heir to the Winner dynasty hung himself in his barracks.'

'I will not be persuaded by hysterics.  He's lasted this long.  I've had no report of suicidal behaviours.'

'No, and you won't.  Because people would be expected to provide reasons.'

'Barton is protecting him,' Khushrenada countered, and pursed his lips.  'If anything, he is protecting Barton.  I think perhaps you should explain to me this new urgency.  Do you have a first-hand observation to report?'

'No,' Duo said reluctantly.

'Second-hand information of some kind?'

'No.'  A drop of wet escaped his shirt collar and dripped down his chest.  He wound his fingers into tight fists.  'Barton approached me.  You'd've found out and I want to be clear that I never lied about our level of contact.  We have no level of contact.  He approached me this afternoon.  He's scared.  They're messing with his food, too, but Barton can handle himself.  He'll kill someone, eventually.'

'And you somehow gave him the impression I would do something about this situation, assuming there is, in fact, a situation?  As a personal favour to you?'

'Of course not.'  He was losing ground.  He needed control, he needed to keep Khushrenada on his track.  He dug at his palms with his fingernails.  'Send them to Sanq.  Bodyguards.  Call them attaches.  Heero will know how to use them best.'  Not working.  Khushrenada's face was so guarded he didn't even blink.  'Quatre will get on well with Zechs.  He could be useful, if he finds himself again.'

'Are you asking me to group three Gundam Pilots with the same man you predict will eventually turn on me.'

'I never said he'd turn on you.  I said he'd stop sleeping with you.'

'I believe my point remains.'

'Quatre's spent time in Sanq.  He'll serve its king and his counsel might make Zechs a real king, a king you might actually admire.  Trowa will behave because it will make Quatre happy.  Not one of them is a threat to you.  Winner's beaten.  Barton's disaffected and Yuy is in love.'

'I need a better reason, Mr Maxwell.  I can have Winner separated from his current barracks, put in isolation.  Assigned to a counselor.'

'He doesn't need a shrink.  He needs a fucking job.  They have him cleaning latrines.'

'I need a better reason, Mr Maxwell.'

'Do it because it's right.'

One ginger eyebrow twitched, raising just a fraction, barely a centimetre.  'We could debate "right", but right or not it is hardly politic.'

'He'll die.  If you didn't care about that you'd never have brought us here to begin with.  If it's all about politics then be political, you think people wouldn't take it as confidence?  You can afford to let Heero go, you can--'

'Mr Maxwell.'

'What?'

'Ask me because I owe you my life.'

His breath caught, strangled up in his gut.  'No.'

'No?'  Khushrenada shrugged broad shoulders.  He sat back in his chair.  No.  Duo had never had any say in the way this was going, he'd given that up even walking into the room.  The drip of sweat on his chest was joined by a fellow.  He pressed his tie into his sternum, trying to blot it.  'Not how you meant to spend that favour, was it.'

'I spent it getting this position.'

'Such a paltry price.  We both know I will do it if you ask.  So ask.'

The only power he had.  A shot fired weeks ago.  And keeping Khushrenada focused on the personal drama.  The way Khushrenada was staring at him, like he had x-ray vision, every secret laid bare.  Duo met his eyes.  He nodded, the littlest up-down that made his head feel like it was going to wobble off to the floor.  And Khushrenada returned it, hands folded over his belly, agreeing as if it were no more momentous than the menu for dinner.

'Then I will do it,' Khushrenada said.

'I thought.'  Duo cleared his throat.  'It wasn't politic.'

'It isn't.  And it will not spend well for me.  But you must want it very badly-- and we both know you'll never be in a position to ask something so dangerous of me again.  I like having that debt unwritten so early in our acquaintanceship, Mr Maxwell.'

Khushrenada knew.  No, he couldn't know.  He suspected, obviously he suspected-- Duo tried to swallow, and couldn't.

'Make an appointment with the office in Sanq,' Khushrenada said then, and released him from interrogation.  He donned his glasses and turned back to his work.  'We'll inform them of their incoming agent.  And schedule a call with his Highness Prince Milliardo's security team.  I believe he'll want to be directly informed of his newest asset.'

'Yeah.'  Duo was on shaky knees, standing.  'Um, assets.'

'No.  Winner is the one at risk, as you say.  Sanq shall have two of you, I shall have two of you.  You can hardly expect me to transfer both out.  And I believe that is very adequate repayment of my debt to you.'

'But--'

But nothing.  'Did you ever bring that sandwich?' Khushrenada said.  'Ah, never mind.  I have supper with Denny Sanford at half seven.  Have the driver ready for me at forty after six.'  He took up his pen and inked a note in the margin of his dossier.  He didn't look up, though Duo wavered.  He was still reading when Duo returned to his office, and shut the door behind him.


	22. Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

The day he'd arrived in Luxembourg he'd come in wearing shackles.

He'd been sixteen, small for his age and thus head and shoulders shorter than the fully-grown adults who marched him from the back of the armoured humvee to the squat ugly bunker outside the town. He'd had a hazy impression of rain and mud before he was let loose in a hastily emptied coat room, one lone hanger of twisted wire still dangling from the rod, otherwise bare. They had set locks and a heavy bolt. There was no vent, no air, no heat. He had sat himself in the middle of the floor, unwilling, then, to show any weakness, even basic human needs. He'd been waiting there, legs crossed taylor-style, hands clasped in his lap, when they fetched him again eleven hours later.

'No wonder they lost, a runt like that inside a Gundam,' said the sour-faced, round-shouldered man who opened the door to find him there. 'You're our newest recruit, Winner,' the man added then, sneering. 'How kind of you to _volunteer_ your service.'

'Volunteering for what,' Quatre had asked, too parched for real voice, but the dour man heard, and barked a little laugh.

'Preventers,' he said. 'Time to start building things instead of breaking them.'

 

There was no send-off. The order came through on a Tuesday. Quatre's unit captain delivered it with distinct jealousy, clearly believing he'd pulled some kind of favour, as if he had those to pull. She stood scowling over him as he packed his duffel, emptied his locker, signed away his base privileges and turned in all his access codes. When he asked for Trowa, she took great relish in telling him no.

They'd had plans, once, in the early days when they'd been unsure if they'd ever be transferred out, when it had still been a real possibility that they'd take 'friendly' fire on a mission, or a sniper shot from the enemies they'd left littered about the Sphere. Every day might have been their last day, and no guaranteed means of communication, of good-byes. Quatre enacted every measure he could think of. He ripped out the left corner seam of his bunk mattress, picked long ago and ready for just a yank at the loose stitching. He moved the strip of duct tape on the back of his locker to the left, as well, hidden just inside the door hinge where it might not be immediately noticed if someone thought to look in. When he wiped his name from the white board duty roster he used the eraser to smear a smudge under the left border on the flat paint of the wall.

'I need the loo,' he told his captain, and she rolled her eyes and made a point of following him in, but said nothing about his choosing a particular stall, and he used his time sitting on the toilet to steal a wad of scratchy paper and the pencil from his locker to write the same message on as many leaves as he could, each rolled up and secreted in his shirt cuff for disposal at the dead drop points they'd selected years ago. When he turned up missing, Trowa would go looking. TO, he wrote, transfer order, and NW, no warning, DU, destination unknown; and ND, no duress. Not that there was anything either of them could ever have done if the other had been dragged away kicking and screaming, but he'd known, Trowa knew, that there was nothing worth living for if--

He made himself breathe. ND, he wrote on every leaf. ND. L. Love you.

'You in there crying, Nancy?' Captain Ursa jeered, when he emerged, having delayed as long as he thought he could. He ducked his head and let her assume it was true. In truth, his eyes were dry. He felt benumbed. It was happening too fast and yet time seemed to be crawling. He thought he could hit her, knock her out maybe, make a run for it. They'd clearly not anticipated he'd be violent, if they'd only sent her, even if she did have a sidearm and he didn't. But he couldn't bring himself to try it. There was no point in it. If they didn't shoot him down they'd put him in the glass house for some term of punishment and transfer him anyway at the end of it. It seemed all too much trouble, too much energy, and he was drained, utterly drained of fight. There was no point in any of it. He'd be lucky to ever see Trowa again. They were never, ever lucky.

By dragging his feet and tripping over every available stumbling block he managed to place all his messages. One in the jamb of the outer barracks door above the second hinge plate. They road the tram, not taking a private car, and he left one wedged in the crack between seats third from the front on the left, though his captain, by then annoyed at his antics, grabbed him by the shoulder and flung him into the back, to the standing-only area. He left three in the transportation depot-- she denied him the loo when he asked for it again, but he got one under the newspaper stand in the front and one under the serviette dispenser at the coffee station, hoping neither would be accidentally swept up by cleaning crews before Trowa could get here, and his last at the ticket counter, where he signed out at the log and received his card with his new placement orders, and nothing with which to check its contents. He pocketed it, head down, as his captain sniffed at him.

'Poor bastard, whoever has you next,' Ursa told him. She sipped her coffee-- she hadn't let him get one, only made him wait as she poured her own, and took his grimace at the sight of stomach-turning greasy pastry and tanin-heavy brackwater as envy, too delighted in her petty jabs to notice none of them landed. 'Rotten,' she said then. 'Knew you were rotten the minute I laid eyes on you.'

'Caravan ETA twenty minutes,' the transpo clerk told her. 'Delay on the roads.'

'Fuck.' She checked her watch. 'Down to the minute, you're a pain in the ass, Winner.'

The clerk glanced at him. Sympathy, or maybe pity, though he only dared to let it linger a moment. 'At least in Sanq he's someone else's problem, Ursa,' the clerk said, and tapped his files to lock, leaving for his office.

Sanq. Quatre stared after him. It couldn't be. They wouldn't transfer him to Sanq-- it made absolutely no sense at all. Was there another base with a similar-sounding name?

'Go stand by the wall, Winner,' Ursa muttered. 'Don't let me see you move.'

He obeyed, still dazed. Sanq. It couldn't be true. He touched the card in his pocket, suddenly furious. Of course they'd play games, keep information from him, hoping he looked the idiot when he showed up at his destination ignorant even of which stop to debark. Ursa's aggression was and had always been petty, but for her power to make everything difficult. But how to get the clue to Trowa? If he passed misinformation it could be months, even years before Trowa worked out the truth. But-- but, would it be better for Trowa to believe him in Sanq? A peaceful kingdom. There was no combat action in Sanq, and even if the rumours were true that Khushrenada had managed to wrangle a promise of a new base in the kingdom of Pacifists, it wouldn't go up overnight. Trowa would believe him safe in a place like Sanq. It was a dream posting, really.  He'd be so relieved, to think of Quatre in a place like that.

He hesitated a moment longer, but really the decision had been made.  Then there was only the question of what to do about it.  He'd already dropped all the messages indicating he didn't know where he'd be sent, and Ursa would notice if he retraced his steps, at least in the depot, or tried to get hold of anything to write new messages.  He faced the wall, dropping his head onto cool plasterboard.  Think.  Think.

Plasterboard.  It would have to be something small-- defacing base property was worth a night in holding, and Ursa would love him handing her even so flimsy a pretext.  That ruled out using his pencil.  But the plaster was just soft enough, and an experimental scratch of his fingernail yielded paint flakes and a faint gouge.  Trowa wouldn't know to look here, not really, this random spot on the wall, but maybe he'd think Quatre might hear the destination when the caravan arrived, maybe he'd be frantic, looking for any clue of any kind--

Ursa collected him just as the short queue of humvees pulled up in the far lane outside the depot.  Quatre turned so that his duffel covered his artwork on the wall, but Ursa, shark-eyed, grabbed at his hand.

'Disgusting,' she muttered, staring at his broken and bloodied nails.  'Medical reported you went off your meds.  Keep this up and they'll double your dosage.  You want to be a zombie?  Huh?  You want to walk around drooling and brain-dead?  Give them a reason.  Show up looking like an escaped mental patient, self-mutilating like a teenage psycho.'  She dropped his hand as if it had burnt her.  'Sogran was an idiot, choosing you.  I warned him.'

Quatre's chest was tight.  There was no warmth in her gaze, no understanding.  Even now, her lip curled in disdain.

'Yes,' Quatre said, though his voice barely emerged as a rasp.  'He was.'

'Load up,' Ursa told him.  'And good riddance.'

 

 

 

They drove straight through the night, stopping several times to drop off supplies, pick up new additions to the caravan, once to eat standing up beside the road, five times at service stations for petrol or to address private human needs.  Quatre went largely ignored, though no-one was cruel or even particularly concerned about his presence, if they even recognised him.  That idea seemed miraculous to Quatre, and he tried not to dwell on it.  He tried, in fact, not to think of anything at all.  He stared out his small backseat window and spoke only when spoken to, ate half a tarragon chicken sandwich someone gave him, watched the scenery pass him by without even noticing that until suddenly he realised they were on the coast.  He could see the ocean.

He slept, sometime between midnight and dawn, and woke sandy-eyed to find he had a new driver and they were driving up and down little rolling hills now, bypassing small cities to either side of the motorway.  Tall buildings of white with large glass windows that reflected the orangey haze of the new morning sprang up this way and that, and beyond the cities was the water.  It glowed, or seemed to, in the rising sun.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak, coughing into his sleeve.  'Where are we?' he called, over the thud-rumble of the humvee's engine.

The driver glanced up for the rear-viewing mirror and brushed bored eyes over him.  'Passing through A Coruña,' he reported.  'Hit the border about an hour ago.  Not as much traffic here.'  He spat blackish chew into a cup he kept on the dash, wiped his mouth on his sleeve.  'Sheepherders,' he said wisely.

There were a lot of sheep, contentedly gnawing their breakfast from the scrubby grass.  And cows.  They lay in groups, right up to the wire fences lining the road.  They raised their heads at the noise of the caravan, and then turned back to their rest.

'A Coruña,' Quatre repeated slowly.  'That's in...'

'Sanq.'

It was true.

His palms were sweating.  He wiped them on his trousers.  Wiped the grit from his eyes, a tiny bit of moisture that sprang up and dried immediately as he ruthlessly pushed away even the hint of feeling behind it.  He turned his face away from the window.

Sanq's capital was a modern monument nestled in a thriving ancient square.  The tumbledown walls of the Old City were still in use, with quaint three-or-four storey homes built right against them, each painted white or peach or sky blue, with rooftop gardens and lace curtains and laundry hanging from lines stretched over the winding lanes.  Closer to the centre, brick was replaced by cement and steel.  The buildings shot up to tower over their neighbours, a music hall with a striking fountain running even in the dead of winter dominated the downtown, and, perched atop the big hill overlooking the whole of it, the palace.  It was bigger than Quatre remembered, having only seen it at the first stage of reconstruction.  Scaffolding still bristled over much of the east-facing facade, which had grown considerably, and winterised gardens of sheet-covered topiaries and red-twigged dogwood and butter-pale hellebore sprawled maze-like all the way to the cliffs.  It was, as it had always been, beautiful, and Quatre hated that he could think that when everything else was so very ugly.

Their caravan wound its way up service roads to a security checkpoint-- obviously new and just as obviously awkward in its newness, too tight to be easily traversed by large humvees and stumbling on a language barrier as well.  Quatre's rusty memories of Sanq's Spanish-inflected dialect provided a rough translation, but he kept that knowledge to himself.  After rigourous negotiation they were allowed through, and their vehicles rumbled uphill, swinging wide around the palace for the range of smaller government buildings appending it like squat guards ranged before a temple.  Quatre was deposited at the fourth of these, a little pre-fab shack with a gurgling gas tank inexpertly pumping heat and fuel from the side wall.  The driver waved him off, kindly enough, but didn't stay for longer than it took Quatre to climb out and take his duffel with him.

Inside the shack was a harried-looking official who took Quatre's card and inserted it into his desktop computer to read the files.  Quatre had still not seen them and was left standing on the wrong side of the desk, nor did the man tell him anything about what he read.  Instead he printed a few sheets on the dot-matrix, which he also declined to share, and then he shooed Quatre out before him as if he were a chicken in the yard, constantly underfoot and never going in the right direction.  Since he had no idea which direction he was meant to go in, Quatre had no choice but to let himself be herded.  They took a service passage into the palace, each door opened by a keycard on the man's belt.  There were stairs, many stairs, and before long the man was huffing and wiping persperation from his temples, though Quatre found it trivial exercise after Luxembourg.  Corridors, scuffed and unpainted, partially due to their new construction and partially because important people would never walk them.  They didn't encounter a window for some twenty minutes, and then only beside a service lift which was strung with rope and a sign announcing it unoperational.  When they reached what Quatre estimated the top or perhaps second to top floor, they were at the head of a long stretch of doors, a freshly carpeted hall, newly installed lamps still flaked with drill-dust.  The man chose one halfway down the hall on the right, and to the small corkboard beside the door he tacked one of the papers he carried.  It had Quatre's name on the header.

'Key,' the man said, and handed him a little brass stick.  He gestured to the door, and did it again, impatiently, when Quatre only looked at him.  'In.  Go.'

Quatre inserted the key.  Turned it.  The door clicked open, and, evidently believing his job done, the man left him with nothing further.

Quatre pushed open the door.  It was an apartment.  A studio, properly, with a kitchenette against the wall and a dinette, set with a chequered tablecloth and a single chair with a fringed cushion on the seat.  Slowly Quatre let his duffel drop.  The floor was tiled, laminate that smelled faintly lemon, generic in its design but new and unscuffed.  He trailed his fingers over the kitchen counter-- granite-- and stepped around the corner.  A bedroom.  A large bed, a double, much bigger than the bunks in the barracks.  Linens obviously new from the bag, still marked at fold points.  Chocolate brown with a slim border of green.  Tan sheets.  Four fluffy pillows.  A cupboard, simple but real wood, with white ceramic knobs embossed with the Peacecraft coat of arms, and a trunk at the foot of the bed, a glazed radiator by the window-- a window.  He had a window.  It overlooked the city.

There was a vase on the small table at the window.  It held a single flower.  A hibiscus.

He sat at his dinette table with a glass of water, but no matter how many times he scraped at his eyes with his fists, they remained dry.


	23. Heero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Your office,' Heero told Quatre, coding Quatre's badge for all but seven of the access points across the palace grounds. 'I put in a requisition form for a desk. I don't think they've found one yet. There are differing opinions on priorities, and Relena's people left a mess on their way out the door.'

Quatre nodded.

'Retaliatory,' Heero said, and turned on his printer to warm up. 'We retained about a third of her staff, mostly domestic. Preventers were assisting in new background checks. You'll take that over. Random interviews as well as selected. They were all pre-emptively removed from security-related positions. Your discretion as to whether any are fit to resume that. Supplies,' he said then, pointing to a locked cabinet just visible around the corner of several cubicles. 'You're supposed to get supplies from Preventers, technically, but you can start with anything extra you find in there. The black ink pens tend to dry up faster.'

Quatre nodded again. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if he hadn't slept.

'You'll liaise with the Royal Guard on all intelligence matters. Report directly to his Highness on anything external to the kingdom originating from Preventers, but we have jurisdiction on internal matters.' Heero had nothing further to add, but as the silence dragged on, Quatre barely stirred even to breathe. Heero folded the edges of the printouts and tore the dotted margins at the perforations. He said, 'Did they walk you through your locality profile?'

A faint shake of the head.

'You need civilian clothes,' Heero said. 'You have a per diem for meals, but the palace provides a breakfast buffet for staff, and they've extended an invitation for you to join free of charge. If you have any dietary restrictions I can pass that along.'

An adam's apple bobbed in a swallow, chapped lips flattening for just a moment, but altogether it was not sufficiently interpretable as expression. Quatre asked, 'Safe?'

'Safe,' Heero confirmed, and Quatre nodded again.

'Is there a quartermaster?' Quatre asked then, the longest sentence he'd yet managed.

'Not in Sanq. The closest for you is Lisbon. If you need anything immediately I can ask Madam Sigrid to purchase it on condition of reimbursement from Preventers.'

'I need a few personal things,' Quatre said. His thousand-mile stare seemed to fall on the window, but his eyes were unfocussed. 'Toiletries, mostly.'

'Make a list,' Heero said, and Quatre took up the pen from his borrowed dossier stamped with the Sanq Royal Crest and wrote five or six items on the crisp blue page. Heero took it and folded it for his outbox. 'Laundry's taken care of by palace staff, yours included. Shoes outside your door if you want them shined. There's a barber in town most of the staff use. I assume you'll be responsible for Preventers' standards, so you might need to inform them.  They're only used to Sanqian.  If you need English-language staff-- I remembered that you learnt some of the dialect, when we were here.'

'Yes.'

'There's language courses at the university.  They offer night classes.  Not many have opted for it, but it's available.  If you would like.'

'Yes.'  Quatre hesitated, mouth open just slightly, and Heero waited on him.  'Forgive me,' Quatre said.  'You mentioned a barber?'

'Yes.  In town, but really just at the foot of the hill.  There's a shuttle on the half hour, but it's about fifteen minutes by foot.'

A strange thing happened, then.  Quatre went keen, on.  Awake and aware for the first time in Heero's office.  'It's that close?'

Heero didn't know what to make of this sudden interest in such a trivial detail.  'Would you like to go?'

Quatre was on his feet almost before the words fell off his tongue.  'Yes.  Please.'

It took an hour, all told, even with the luck of catching the shuttle on their way outbound.  There was confusion over Quatre's Preventers account card, which hadn't been updated with the new security chip; Heero quietly paid and kept the receipt for accounts.  Quatre could hardly sit, now, thrumming almost audibly with impatience.  The minute he was called he marched for the chair, and if there was some fumbling across the language barrier, Quatre was emphatic in his gestures, and the old man who had charge of him protested only til Heero caught his eyes in the mirror and nodded permission.  Heero stood where he could watch, unobtrusive, as the old barber loaded the electric clippers with the shortest guard.

'You sure?' he asked in broken English, dubious to the last.

'Exceedingly,' Quatre said.  His hands were clenched on the arms of his chair.

The yellow hair that fell sheared to the tile lay in lengths of some seven or eight inches.  Quatre stared at himself in the mirror as the buzzer roamed his skull.  The hard eager light in his eyes matched his steady deep breaths, a man confronting some kind of demon.  A man in victory, and savouring it.  The barber clipped him to barely a quarter-inch, like a halo of ghost-light about his thin face.  He was all eyes and clenched jaw.

'Thank you,' he told the barber, as the last lock fell to the floor.  'Thank you.  You have no idea how much.'

 

 

'What do you make of it?' Zechs wondered, when Heero had finished describing it.

'I don't know.'  Heero poured coffee into a gold-rimmed porcelain cup and then added a splash from the whiskey decanter.  He selected a biscuit from the plate and set it across the saucer.  He set the service on the edge of the leather deskcover, and Zechs draped a hand over it, steam drifting up through his fingers.

'You don't know,' he mused.

Heero shrugged.  He poured a second coffee for himself, adding cream and sugar.  It was a better roast, here, than what they'd had at Headquarters, but he didn't like the chemical interference even if it didn't leave a bitter aftertaste.  He sipped once, for the show of it, and set it aside as soon as Zechs stopped watching for him to drink it.

Zechs was leaning back in his chair, long legs splayed, left foot tapping the thick pile of the carpet.  'Damn Treize,' he burst out then, but he went moody and tight-lipped a moment later.  'Damn Treize.  Saddling me with his problems.'

'He sent you a handsome war hero.'  Heero sat where he could see the hall through the half-open door.  It was nearing noon, and the staff were in a slow-down before luncheon rush.  'The new haircut suits him.  Angelic.  A man, not a boy.'

'God, not you too.  Spare me men who solve problems with politics.  Where's that-- I want that dossier from Relena.  Did you keep a copy of that?  The background she gave us on Hibiscus in Sanq.  There must be a copy in my private file.'

'Private is a euphemism,' Heero told him.  'Khushrenada knew you were keeping copies for a year at least.  He had you hacked two months into that.'

'I thought you said the network was tight.'

'It's a network,' Heero said.  'By nature it's vulnerable the second it involves two computers.'

Zechs waved a hand at him.  'All I'm interested in knowing is which of them lied to me.  Quatre Winner is here because of Hibiscus, or Hibiscus will be here because of Quatre Winner.'  He glared into the middle distance, chewing over the problem.  'What did he make of you conducting his orientation?  He didn't find it odd?'

'He seemed out of sorts.  I don't think he noticed.'

'Because you could have chosen to do it as a former friend.'

'As a Gundam Pilot.  As a Preventer.  As the highest ranking security officer on the grounds.  There are no reasons for me not to have briefed him.'

Zechs abruptly faced him.  'Could you build on that?  Get close to him again?'

Heero let a blink pass.  He felt like Quatre, suddenly alert.  'Why,' he said, and then immediately dismissed the obvious.  'He'll suspect any sudden moves.  We haven't spoken in years.  He has nothing to say to me.'

Zechs drank his coffee.  He made a note to himself on his pad, rose to stand before the grand windows overlooking the ocean.  He put a hand on the glass, to interpose between the world outside and the forehead he leant against it.

'I wouldn't do it anyway,' Heero said.

'Wouldn't do what?'  Zechs left a streak on the glass, a big palm-print.  'It has to be something innocuous, but big enough to warrant the risk.  He was close to Sogran... didn't Sogran have family?  What about that inside man we had, Kurt something?  Ralph Kurt.  Maybe Kurt has something we could use, some colonial connection...'

'To what end?'

'We leak him something, it leaks to the wrong people, we'll have proof Winner is involved.  And that he knows more about Hibiscus than he gave up.  Not that he gave anything up-- Treize wouldn't let us interrogate him, you know.  He's too quick to make choices in favour of the Gundam Pilots, he always has been.  It feeds his notions about special people in the course of history.  Special people get special treatment.'

'You were one of those people,' Heero said, but his voice was too soft, and Zechs' head never turned.

'If it doesn't get out,' he went on, 'who knows.  Maybe he'll develop a little loyalty, standing next to the king of a country he once fought for.  At worst, well, he'll make for good television.  Winner knows how to act in front of cameras, at least, and his face will still be known here. Treize and his political circus,' he said, and Heero saw the grim curve of his smile before Zechs sighed and resumed his seat.  'We should have given Treize a sequined top hat years ago.  The man's a master of distraction and spectacle.'

Heero couldn't discern whether Zechs had just adopted Heero's original proposal or now genuinely believed it his own thought.  It didn't matter, but Heero didn't like that he couldn't read it.  Back in his large chair, Zechs sat framed by the glittering ocean at his back, sunlight on his hair turning it gold.  Quatre was a darker blond, or had been.  Heero didn't understand what he'd seen, and he didn't like that, either.  The world was too full of things he didn't understand.

 

 

The door opened after his second knock.  Quatre stood there, in his undershirt and uniform trousers.  'Oh,' he said.  'I'm sorry, I thought you might be the shoes, so I didn't rush.'

'I am the shoes.'  Heero offered them.  'Looks like you're figuring out how everything runs.'

It must have seemed an extraordinary statement.  It was, in that Heero rarely spoke unnecessarily, and his grimace on speaking it added to the confusion.  Quatre took the shoes, though, and set them on the rack just inside the door.

'Won't you come in,' Quatre said then, and opened the door wide enough to permit him through.

Heero glanced around long enough to ascertain that Quatre's suite looked exactly like his, down to the faux-marble pattern of the linoleum.  There was a plate on the dinette table.  Beans on toast.  It was the same plateware they used for the palace staff.  Someone in the kitchen had taken pity.

Heero said, 'This is for you.  I meant to assign it earlier.'  He put the box on the table, or meant to, til Quatre held out a hand.  'They're a little clumsy and they don't hold a charge, but we're totally electronic recordkeeping here.  You'll need your general account password and one locked to the PDA.'

'Thank you,' Quatre said.

He was as blank as before.  More centred, maybe.  Adjusting.  Adapting.  But there was nothing there in his face when he looked at Heero, no questions, no worries.  No feelings.

Ah, Heero thought then.  Numb.  That he could recognise.

He said, 'His Highness has asked that you provide a daily update.  He has a ten AM.'

'Of course,' Quatre murmured politely.  'I am available at his convenience.'

Heero turned to go.  He stopped with his hand on the knob, and turned back.  'I like your hair that way,' he said.  'Maybe I'd look good like that.'

Quatre's chin came up.  If he'd had hair still, he would have been peering out from his fringe.  'No,' he replied.  'I imagine there's someone who'd care if you cut it all off.'

That was not quite insinuation.  There wasn't enough malice in it.  Not quite a question, either.

'I don't know,' Heero said.  'Some days I don't know much.  I'll see you around.'

Quatre nodded. 'Good night.'

'Good night,' he echoed, and let himself out.


	24. Treize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

The organist struck up a dirge at sufficient pace to encourage people out of their seats.  Pews creaked as the hundred or so in attendance rose as one, though all waited politely for the family to make first escape.  Treize removed his glasses and folded them away into the pocket of his solemn black mourning coat.  He folded his gloved hands at parade rest and watched the dry-eyed matriarch pass his row.

'The fourth wife, I believe,' he murmured to Maxwell, who smothered a grin with a well-timed cough.  'And the buxom blonde there would be the mistress.  I always heard he had another family stashed away in secret.  Perhaps they couldn't escape their attic to attend his funeral.'

'Too mean,' Maxwell muttered, though his lips twitched still.  'Show some respect.'

'I have so little to work with.'  But he did fall silent, then.  The daughter was departing down the central aisle.  Her long red hair fell in shining waves below her shoulders, like gold ablaze against the dark velvet of her blouse.  She alone of the women wore trousers, an unusual fashion statement amongst the hidebound conservatives who tended to make up the wealthy elite of both Earth and the Colonial jet-set.  The brooch at her lapel winked with diamonds, but her face was unadorned, fresh and youthful.  She met his eyes.  He inclined his head to her, and thought that would be all.  But she halted before him, her pale hand falling to the shoulder of the child who walked beside her.

'Treize,' Leia said.  'I'd hoped I'd see you again.  I'm grateful you came.'

He bowed over her hand.  'Your niece, I believe?' he asked, extending his hand to the child.  The little girl did not duck him or blush shyly; Treize received a firm and proper shake from tiny fingers.  'What is your name?' he asked the girl.

'Marie Barton, sir.'

'I am very sorry about your grandfather, Marie Barton.'  She did not let go-- or perhaps he did not.  Her small hand was very cold, and he wrapped it in both of his.  Her eyes were an unusually dark blue. 

'Are you sad he's gone?' the girl asked, quite directly.

Rather than lie, Treize squeezed her hand.  'I am sad for your sorrow,' he answered, truthfully enough, looking up for Leia's gaze.

'Perhaps we'll have time to speak later.'  Leia inhaled, her breast rising and falling and her shoulders leavening once more.  'I'm sure the demands on your time are...'

He waited just long enough to realise her hesitation was weariness.  He nodded, once.  This close to her, now, he saw the lines at her mouth, the tight translucent skin beneath her eyes that told of long sleepless nights.

'Come, Marie,' Leia said softly, and drew the child away with her.  The click of their heels echoed throughout the nave, the piercing high notes of the organ shimmering into the eaves like birdcalls.

 

**

 

Maxwell returned the car phone to its cradle, untangling the long cable by twining it through his fingers.  'Reservations are made,' he said.  'You have the Prime Minister's Suite at the Rochefort.  Kind of a waste for two people.'

'Is this thrift or prudery?' Treize wondered absently, circling a phrase in the report he read and annotating in the margin.  'No children will go hungry tonight because I sleep in a large hotel room.'

'It's definitely the least showy display of privilege and vanity I've seen all day.'

Maxwell had been punchy since they'd entered Colonial space.  Treize had made note of it and watched its progress, and judged it well enough in control.  A little verbal aggression was no great fault, when outlet was needed.  He finished his notes and put out a hand.  Maxwell traded dossiers with him, and Treize settled back with the day's accumulation of intelligence alerts.  'If it makes you feel better,' Treize said, and sipped from his glass of soda water, 'you can sleep on the couch.'

Their car rocked a bit as they slid through perpetually grid-locked colonial traffic.  Maxwell was decidedly on edge, his jaws set as he stared at the blacked windows, his own reflection scowling back.  Their slow progress in the armoured limo evidently tested his sense of security.  They'd been an hour leaving the Cathedral of Our Lady of Blessed Peace in L1's busy downtown, and crawling through the commuter hour on the confusing grid of one-way streets toward the hotel district was rather an itchy business.  Treize had spent most of his life in transport between one event and the next, and put his idle time to good use, but Maxwell had weightier thoughts on his mind, and his brows had been permanently joined by the frown lines on his forehead.  Treize sipped his water and ignored him as he'd ignored a decade of Zechs pacing impatient holes in the carpet.

'So are you going to call her?'

'Call her?'  Treize employed his blue ink again, drawing a double line beside a paragraph of interest.  'I should.  She invited us to join her for luncheon tomorrow.'

'She invited you.'

'No.  Us.  Specifically.'

Maxwell's head turned toward him.  Treize glanced up, for the benefit of the well-crafted 'bullshit' eyeroll the man gave him.

'She knew what her father was involved in,' Treize told him blandly.  'Everyone at that funeral knows who you are.  She knows more than most.'

'Who I was used to be interesting.  Who I am now isn't in her league.'

Now who's bullshitting, Treize thought, but didn't speak it.  He drew a long arrow to the bottom of the page, beneath the 'Action' header, and wrote _I will be unavailable for this conference.  Major Racha would be an acceptable speaker.  Propose the substitution and send a crew to record.  TK._

'She knew you,' Maxwell said.  'No reason for that.  Seemed personal, too.'

He merely signed his acknowledgment on the next several forms, skimming for the main points.  'We knew each other when we were younger.  I was injured during an engagement in A Area.  They brought me to L1 to convalesce.  She was a medical student, in those days.  For a while I even stayed with her and her father.  Well before we had reason to suspect how deep Barton's sympathies ran with the Resistance, obviously.'

'Did you do her?'

Zechs had asked that once.  'One might suspect from your tone that you were jealous,' Treize replied lightly.  More than once.  It had been quite a sore point between them.  Leia would have been amused to be rivalled by such men as those.  Then again, any Barton would expect to be envied.  The entitlement of privilege and vanity.

'One might suspect from your tone that you want me to be,' Maxwell retorted, and Treize, amused, gave him that point.  Maxwell sucked in his cheeks, biting his lip to white.  He looked away.  'You dragged me all the way out to Siberia for something way less personal than a two-minute chat with the daughter of your enemy.  I'm questioning.  I'm trying to understand.'

'Do you need to touch every piece to solve the puzzle?'

'Depends.  How many pieces have I seen so far?'

Clever.  He did enjoy the sparring.  Very well, then, earned, and it was no great sacrifice, this piece.  Treize drew a small circle in the upper corner of a memo on the new biometrics database, pressing the tip of the pen deep into the yellow onionskin.  Very well.  'She was very lovely.  Seventeen.  I... was not myself, in many ways.'

They paused by mutual agreement, as the car jumped a bit for a lane change, chasing a narrow chance to make it through the light.  The water in the carafe sloshed.  Treize watched it drip down the crystal, soaking into the black leather of the bar.

'So is that why she didn't look away from you the entire service?'

'Perhaps she was looking at the only friendly face in attendance.  Dekim Barton was not well-loved.  And he was a monster to live with.'

'Now, that, I can believe.'  Maxwell was looking at him much as Leia had, and Treize had been aware of it indeed, the way her eyes didn't linger and her attention was so very centred.  'So who was the kid?'

Treize bent his head to his correspondence.  'Her niece.'

'Is that a euphemism?'

'It may be.  I don't know.  They only brought the girl forward after Trowa Barton-- the original, of course-- was killed.  I suppose it could be, as you say, a euphemism.'

He'd married her.  Just a license and an oath at the justice of the peace.  He'd thought it might protect her; to have a name, a future.  Someone in the military, a career officer.  The opposite of Dekim's designs.  Barton had it annulled the second Treize was off the colony.  He hadn't seen her since then.  He'd thought of her immediately, first, on reading the death announcement.  Red hair, sleek like silk.

Maxwell read his thoughts, or at least his expression.  He said, 'The kid's yours.  Isn't she?'

'I don't know.'  Treize flipped a page, flipped back and made himself actually read its content, every sentence.  'Of course I suspect it.  But that's not the story Barton told.  And if you'll notice, the child saw nothing unusual in meeting me.  She doesn't know.'

'Why didn't you go back for them?'

'The moment is long past.  The moment would have derailed everything I've ever planned for myself, for my life.'

'What about theirs?' Maxwell said, no heat, as if he were merely curious, but when Treize glanced up Maxwell was looking at him through narrowed eyes.  'Just pawns?'

'Not pawns.  Just not mine, anymore.  Not ever.  For a few minutes in a court house when I was nineteen.'

'I don't believe that.  You were never that big a pussy.'

He laughed, at that, while Maxwell frowned his deep frowns.  'Give me credit for being a stupid boy pumped full of pain-killers who made a vow he didn't mean and had no way of keeping.  I was terrified she'd come with me.  Maybe she knew.  She never pressed me to come back for her.'

'Mm.'

There was the puzzle picture, such as it was.  If Maxwell enjoyed the tale or even the triumph of getting it, it didn't show on his face.  He went back to the impassive windows, as the car lurched along.  After a moment of his own watchful staring, Treize allowed himself an irritated breath.  Very well.

'So we're having lunch tomorow,' Maxwell said, perhaps fifteen minutes later, as Treize neared the end of his reports and now rifled the many telephone messages that had chased him beyond the atmosphere into Space.

'You needn't attend if you'd rather not,' Treize said shortly, not so much determined to be generous as he was hoping for a short engagement.  Leia had proposed it and he could hardly deny her, for reasons beyond what was owed between the star-struck teenagers they had not been in many years.  But he intended no further promises, and a wise man never pursued temptation without secretly intending to fail.

'Reservation for two in a private booth?' Maxwell wondered, pointed, even nasty, though his face was wiped of all expression.  'Maybe room service in the Prime Minister's Suite.  Plausible deniability, if I'm there to cover for you.'

'Mr Maxwell.'

'Yeah?'

'I believe I've been terrifically clear where my preferences lie.  And it is not with girls, seventeen, lovely, or otherwise.'

Maxwell's mouth flapped silently.  That, Treize decided, was a win.  'Do you--'  Maxwell wet his lips, swallowed hard.  'Whatever you thought I was-- I'm not-- I'm not asking about that.'

Treize closed the dossier and tossed it to the bench between them.  'I'm not sure you know what you're asking for, Mr Maxwell.'

 

 

**

 

The Barton mansion-- The Green, Leia reminded him, her left cheek dimpling as she spoke the words with due solemnity-- was a cavernously empty thing, like a doll's house no longer in play.  Together they toured unused rooms strung with damask and velvet, past antique four-poster beds with no sleeping occupants, pacing marble floors where no shoes walked anymore.  They paused, briefly, at the door beyond which Dekim had died, surrounded by white medical equipment pumping blood through his withered black heart.  All the monitors were dark, the iron lungs deflated, no bleeps or blips recording a faltering life.  Leia gazed on all of it with resignation, with something like irony, though Treize did not know the source of her thoughts and chose not to ask.

The kitchen, stark though it was in modern steel and unsullied porcelain, was their final destination, and they sat together at the large table, drawing their chairs near each other to share a corner.  Treize twitched the heavy gold paisley cloth and lace napkin, the curlique design of the silverware.  Even the crystal goblets were empty.  An unremarkable woman in a demure uniform of blue dress and white apron served them coffee and a towering plate of artisanal macaroons and truffles.  Treize chose one pressed in the shape of a sunflower, its petals gilted gold.

He said, 'This place is immeasurably improved with that old cockroach dead.'

Leia's dimple reappeared.  'It's certainly more civilised.'

She poured the coffee for him, adding cream and a single small spoon of sugar crystals, stirring elegantly and placing the cup and saucer very precisely before him.  Treize sat back with his hands clasped over his belly, watching as she repeated the ritual for herself.  Two sugars.  She sipped, her eyes on his, long lashes quivering.  She pressed the edge of her napkin very gently to her lips, so lightly that her lipstick made only a faint pink impression on the fabric.

'He left you a small legacy,' Leia said.  'In his will.'

He had himself a good long laugh at that.  He ate the truffle, and put another on her plate.  She was smiling.  Warmly.  'I'm afraid nothing he did in the last six months of his life will buy him into heaven,' she murmured.

'I should feel very betrayed if it did.'

'I remember that look,' she said.

'Which look.'  

'Don't be coy.  It doesn't suit you.'

'Yes, ma'am.'  He laughed again, freely.  He did remember what he'd liked about her.  She wasn't squashed by Dekim, when she really should have been.  The old bastard had tried.  'So.  You're free of that rat dropping now.  What will you do?'

'Did you really think I was a captive all this time?'

'You never were.  But now you have the money.  You used to have plans.'

'I still do.  I've listed this property for sale.  I'm moving to L3.'

'What will you do there?'

'I imagine you'll be disappointed.'  She sipped her coffee.  Pushed her dessert away untouched.  'There's a serious lack of organisation in the colonial health care system.  I've bought myself a position.  I plan to begin reform.'

'Not disappointed,' Treize replied.  'I know you'll be brilliant.  It's a good idea.'

'It is.  I'm surprised you didn't think of it yourself.'  Leia removed her hairpins, shaking loose her wealth of hair.  It tumbled over her shoulder, helped along with a sweep of her hand.  She wiped her mouth again, this time to remove her lipstick entirely.  Her eye makeup was next, streaks of black that left smudges on her translucent lids, and then beside the napkin she placed her pearl necklace and her gold watch and the garnet rings.  Bare of all trappings she was just the girl he'd known.  Unbroken, but not unworn by time.  She sat there, stripped to herself, and let him see the years marking her.

You are lovelier now than ever, he thought, not at all romantically, and chose not to say that, either.

She broke the silence.  'Perhaps you could loan me your secretary for a few weeks.'

Given that she'd asked for Maxwell's presence, he was not surprised by the gambit.  'For?' he inquired.

'He has the sort of insight into colonial politics I'll find useful.'  She shrugged.  'And probably contacts as well.'

'Are you asking me to loan you a Gundam Pilot to make contact with colonial Resistance?'

She only arched a brow, as if he'd thrown a very small tantrum.  'Don't you think that most of the Resistance have changed with the times, just as Mr. Maxwell has?'

'Should I be so stupid as to bet on it?  Our affair never included promises not to fight on different sides, Leia.'

'I've always been more interested in healing than fighting.  That's where you and I differed.  It irritated Dekim as well.'

He rotated his coffee cup around several times, thinking through her proposal.  Glad now that Maxwell had suffered a bout of nerves and remained in the car, skulking near enough to imprint his shadow on this conversation but far enough away to never know the details of his untrod path.  'You'll have to ask him yourself.  He's not mine to give as loans.'

She smiled.  'You are his superior officer.  Chain of command.'

'He's a friend,' Treize corrected.  'And I won't pretend it doesn't interest me, to see if he chooses to join you.'

Her smile glinted larger, for just a second.  'And having an inside man is always useful?'

'I wouldn't be so uncouth,' he teased.  'When I have an inside man you'll never know who it is.'

Leia laughed softly, richly.  'We're not adversaries.'

'Today.'  He reached for her hand, her still hands that did not fidget on the tablecloth.  She allowed him to take it in his.  'Such little fingers.'

'Capable fingers.'  She paused.  'I've never forgotten what you attempted to do for me.  And I've never expected more than you gave.'

'I would have made a bad husband.'

'You would have held me back, and I would have left you with a scandal,' she said, and the wry curl of her lip returned, though her eyes stayed sad.  'I never know whether to admire or hate you.  But I am grateful.'

'Ask me what you brought me here to ask me.  Not for my Gundam Pilot.  Why, really?'

Her fingers interlaced with his.  'I do have a small problem.'

'No lengthy introductions, please.  Just out with it.'

'My daughter doesn't wish to accompany me.'

Treize noted they'd dispensed with 'niece'.  He said, 'She's a child.  Inform her of her obedience.'

'Her reasons are valid.  I'll make other arrangements for her.'

That was a little outre, even for a woman raised to be a breeder of Resistance martyrs.  He let it pass, unremarked, waiting for what Maxwell often called the other shoe.  Leia had been a master of misdirection and distraction long before Treize had tumbled into her lap.  There was something more.  He suspected he knew what awaited.  Her thumb stroked his.

Finally Leia said, 'She isn't yours.'

He dropped her eyes for just a fraction of a second, a dark blink.  Returned his gaze to hers with a snap, impassive as granite.

She only chuckled softly.  'I remember that face, too.'

He had already revealed more than he'd intended.  He blinked once more, acknowledging that fatal slip.  'I think I'm... disappointed.'

'Not relieved?'

'To my surprise.'

'Should I have lied?'

'You lie to me when occasion demands it.  If you had judged it needed a lie, you would have done.'  He separated their handclasp, to refresh his coffee and sit back.  He drank.  'I won't have other-- such opportunities.  Disappointed.  A bit.'

'Claim her then,' Leia said, though he couldn't discern whether that offer was any more genuine than his offer of Duo Maxwell's free will.  'I won't deny it.'

'I've never really believed I could claim a Barton woman.'  But it warranted more than a flip joke, and with only a minor twinge he gave what she'd likely wanted him to.  'She can come to me.  If she ever has needs.'  It was, essentially, the same promise he'd given Leia, once upon a time.  If Marie Barton was at all like her mother, she'd use it wisely.

'You have the oddest streak of nobility sometimes,' Leia mused.  She cocked her head at him.  'You're not concerned I'm manipulating you?'

'You've done nothing but manipulate me from the moment we met.  But no more than the usual, and, I trust, not maliciously.  We are friends, aren't we?'

'We are.'  She looked at him for a long time, then, not unlike the way Maxwell had looked into his own reflection and found it wanting.

'I'm glad to have seen you again,' she said finally.  'I'll have Rosa box some of those truffles for your young man.  Treize...'

He raised her knuckles to his lips and brushed a kiss over the knuckle where he'd once placed a cheap wedding band hastily purchased from a pawn shop.  'Be well,' he wished her in farewell.

 

 

**

 

 

'Here's the thing.  For weeks you've been telling me that information is valuable.  Critical, even.  Maybe that's all I'm after.  Because there was some kind of energy arcing back and forth between the two of you.  And it'll be a helluva lot easier for me to watch your back if I know why.'

Treize flicked his screen off and rubbed aching eyes.  'Will you please sit down?  You're making me sea-sick.'

Maxwell hovered between one step and the next, then cratered sideways and sank onto a cushioned ottoman.  'Your friend's niece has nice manners.  Maybe you should offer her an internship.'

'Mr Maxwell, I think that's enough.'

'Don't you want to know what she's capable of?'

'Of what she is capable.  No.  Even assuming we share genetic material, it means nothing to me.  Nor will it mean anything to her.  Who she is will not be formed by who she came from.'

'From whom she came,' Maxwell retorted snottily.  'Are you willing to gamble everything on that?'

'She's not Oedipus, doomed to slay her own father.'

'You don't know that.  You don't know who either of them are any more.  Or what their agendas might be.  Unless you have a really good reason to stuff the idea of them into a closet, maybe you should at least let me find out.'

'Because I am willing to let it be a mystery, Mr Maxwell.  It's in the past.'  But it was sat there between them, like the open laptop with all recent intelligence from L3.  No troop movements, no plots, no more than the average number of protests and arrests; not even any Hibiscus noise on that colony.  A fiction?  Where would she really go?  Or was it only what it appeared to be, the resumption of the career she'd always wanted?  And the child.  The child could not be dismissed out of hand, for all he preferred it and had done exactly that for years already.  Paranoia was someone else's job, but with Maxwell staring him down he felt it eat at him.  He'd loved Leia, in his way, but had never believed her devoid of self-interest.  And, if nothing else, Dekim had picked a damn good time to die and leave his only living heir with all the pieces of her personal puzzle ready to connect.  Treize counted on coincidence, but never luck.

'Very quietly,' he said, and pushed his thumb hard against the orb of his eye, til it hurt.  'Find out what you will.'

Maxwell radiated hard satisfaction.  'Unless I find something dangerous, I'll spare you the report.'

Treize reached for the clicker and turned on the television.  Pointedly.

'Be pissed if you want to.  I'm just trying to watch your back.'

'Please stop that assumption in its tracks.'

Maxwell was all stubborn glare, now.  'No?'

'No.  You have bigger things to do than guard me against unknowns.  I pay men to do that.  You should concentrate on your own path, not mine.'

'I am.  I still need you intact.'

'Not for much longer.  Then you won't need me at all.'  He offered a small smile.  Maxwell inhaled, and held it.

'Yeah, well,' he said, gruff, and then in a flurry of activity packed up the laptop and the paperwork and arranged it in the locked courier bag.  'Until that day comes, you're still a piece on my chessboard.  One I might need to play carefully.'

'Too many metaphors,' Treize said, mostly to himself, since the universe was clearly determined to pay him no mind at all tonight, and with that he went to his sprawling hotel bed.

 

  
 

The clock glowed red.  Three forty-six.  Treize dug a heel into his eyes and touched the other hand to the gun beneath his pillow.

The door was open.  That was what had waked him.  The door was open, and now it was closing, taking the square of slightly brighter black with it, leaving him in total darkness, but for the clock.  Three forty-seven.  The edge of the bed dipped as weight settled on it.  The air was charged.  He could feel the breaths not being breathed between them.  Treize sat up on his elbows.

Maxwell said, 'You should've kept pretending to sleep.  I could have been an assassin here to shoot you.'

'An assassin wouldn't be as short as you.'

'You never know.'  Maxwell's eyes caught just a glint of light from the clock, more a gleam than an impression of colour.  'You could've pissed off a eight-year-old girl genius with access to a lot of dirty money and guns.'

Treize's sigh was mild, tired.  'Duo,' he said.

'Yeah.'  Something hit the floor with a thump.  A shoe, followed momentarily by its brother.  Fabric whispered, a crisp uniform shirt shed to the carpet.  Maxwell crawled the bed toward him.  Three forty-eight.  Hands slid over his thighs as Maxwell settled, straddling Treize's lap.  It wasn't quite a caress.  Treize covered his hands.  Not quite a push to stop him.  No names, this time, no weary denials.  Maxwell didn't let him get it out.  He pressed his mouth to Treize's lips, taking advantage of the half-formed warning there to lead with his tongue.

It was more effort than it should have been to sit passive to that.  Maxwell flattened to his chest, the sheet taut between them, a thin barrier of cotton between fantasy and release.  He made fists in Treize's hair, used the edge of his teeth on Treize's lips.  He rubbed enough with his pelvis to be very clear in his intention.  When Treize at last raised a hand to his shoulder, Maxwell caught it on the rise, sucked on his thumb, swirled his tongue around it, let it drop wet from his mouth and caught Treize's mouth again, kissing him hard.  And then he reached for the blade hidden in his hair, flicked it open in his hand, and set the edge to Treize's adam's apple.

Treize's stilled his hand on Maxwell's knee.  The palm on his back became a fist, before it smoothed flat again, uncertain and shaking and damp with nerves.  Treize did nothing.  No protest.  No fight.  Not even a question.

Maxwell said it anyway, into the flat silence.  His rough whisper was too harsh, too wobbly, not at all sure of itself.  He said, 'I could kill you at any time.'

Treize nodded.  Maxwell nicked him with the knife, meaning to or not meaning to, he wasn't sure, but he was aware suddenly of blood, just a thin sting of it hot against the cold blade.  Maxwell swallowed.

'You know why.'

'Yes,' Treize said, too calm.  He searched himself for reaction, as if he were Maxwell staring at his reflection in the car window.  No reaction at all, as if it were only expected.  Maybe it had been.  They'd both been playing this game, both been waiting for this moment.  No quibbles now it was here.

'You killed my friend,' Duo said, his voice worn down to nothing.  'My-- he...'

'Yes,' Treize said.

'And you trapped us here and you've lied to the Sphere about the whys and you think you can just wave your hand and change history.  Remake us all in your image.  You're not God.  You're just a man, and men die.'

'Yes,' Treize agreed.

Maxwell's hand stopped shaking, then, as if those words were magic.  Treize was proud of that, on some vague remote plane inside himself, watching his threat dissipate in the face of Treize's acceptance of his vulnerability.  Maxwell tried to swallow, couldn't.

'This is-- justice.  For all of us.  Justice, it's-- it's important.'

'I know.'

He licked at the blood on Treize's throat.  A rough swipe and then a kiss, iron taste between them.  He rose up on his knees to remove his shorts, to pull back the sheet.  A kiss, sweeter than it had any right to be.

Treize watched the clock tick to three fifty.  Maxwell brushed hot lips over his jaw, soothing the hurt from the knife, and said, 'I hate that you've made me into someone who can see why you've done it the way you have.'

Treize turned his head away.  'Much has been taken from you.  You'll give more away.  But not this.  You're not a man who surrenders.'

The bed grew cold, slowly.  Maxwell sat just beside him, a faint warmth growing cold, and it was too dark to read his face, even if Treize were looking.

When he left, the door clicked softly closed, latching gently.  Treize lay flat, spreading his arms up along the cool sheet under the pillows.  His gun was still there, holstered.  But for the slight pinch of broken skin on his neck, it might have been a dream.  Even now he was unsure.

Three fifty-nine.  Four double nought.  It was the first clock he'd seen in months that didn't run on military time.  Bancroft had always changed the settings for him, unasked.

Treize closed his eyes, but sleep was a hard chase that night.


	25. Zechs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

Winner kept staring at the mask.

Zechs had always kept it in his office, one amongst a dozen or so items on display as most senior officers had.  Silver glinted, polished by some anonymous staffer, though it was partially hidden behind the commemorative plate from his Academy cadet unit.  The crack in the cranium was as jagged as the day it had shattered on Zechs' head, leaving behind a cleft scar beneath his hairline.

Most visitors to his office didn't notice it.  A few did, but didn't know what it meant.  Winner knew, and he kept staring at it.

And, Zechs realised only slowly, had fallen silent.  He cleared his throat.  'You stopped speaking.'

'You stopped listening,' Winner said, then, a breath too slow, added, 'Highness.'

'I was listening.'

Winner's head lowered to the red-foldered report he held in his lap. 'Headquarters would like to arrange a unit to scout for locations.  It likely won't be til June.  Preliminary review only.'

That was fast for any bureaucracy, even Preventers.  Perhaps Treize really did plan to rush that base he'd bargained for.  But even Treize couldn't move heaven and earth for the wishing, and Zechs didn't have to be personally obstructive to slow things down.  The weight of a project that large and expensive would drag itself to a standstill.  'Of course,' Zechs said.  'I assume you'll keep me apprised of progress.'

'Yes.'  Winner turned a page.  Turned that one, as well, and hesitated before turning another.  'The, er.  The network is still a little slow.  They think it's a firewall issue.  I believe one of the proposed solutions is to purchase another server.'

Zechs waved that off.  'That kind of request goes through the King's Guard.  All on-sight security measures.'

'Yes, sir.'  Winner turned another pair of pages.  One hand trembled.  'I'm not sure there's-- I'm not entirely sure--'

'Do you have anything else that should rise to my level?'

No.  That went without saying.  Winner had only been on the job for a week, in a position that had no precedent in Sanq.  If he knew his ass from his elbow he'd be ahead of the game.  He probably didn't know how to find the WC on his own.

They'd met twice already.  He found Winner to be timid, softly spoken.  Broken, in Treize's unforgiving assessment, and Zechs wasn't sure yet whether he agreed with that.  He'd been pushing, waiting for a sign of life.  Damaged, certainly.  Either it was buried very deep or Winner knew he was pushing and was holding out to be contrary.

The kind of candour that results of weariness.  Winner's bruised-looking eyes closed.  'All I'm doing is repeating, sir.  You have all of this from Agen-- Commander Yuy.  He probably has more current data waiting for download now.'

'So why are you reporting it to me?'

In for a penny.  Maybe that was a flicker of temper, at last.  Zechs had been provocatively obtuse.  He waited, eyebrow arched, as Winner stared at the damn mask like it held the answers to all life's mysteries, or at least the one currently plaguing him.  'It's a good question, sir.  If there's something else you'd rather I do, I'm happy to do it.'

Nearly there.  Zechs discarded a variety of unskilled gopher tasks and went for the most demeaning thing he could imagine.  'Could you see to it Giselle picks up my shirts from the laundress?'

Winner set his jaw.  It took him a moment, and Zechs felt a surge of triumph.  Petty as it was, it felt good to crack that milquetoast facade.  'Of course,' Winner said, slightly hoarse.

'Problem, Agent?'

'Not at all.  I can scrub your toilet, as well.  Anything to be useful.'

And there it was.  Actual sarcasm.  Zechs pretended to scratch his nose, to hide his grin.  'Do you have a better idea?' he asked, when he had control of his expression.

Winner's mouth moved.  His eyes drifted from the mask on its shelf to the window, open to the breeze.  The sweet smell of the ocean was a salty undertone to the bouquets of peonies to either side of the gauzy blowing curtains.  Voices rose, too far away to be coherent but near enough that a woman's laugh carried.  Winner's shoulders slumped, just incrementally.  And then he looked full at Zechs and spoke forthrightly.

'There are people who work for you who've never seen you in person.'

That was-- unexpected.  Unexplained.  It meant nothing to Zechs, and yet Winner said it as if it should carry great weight indeed.  'And you'd like to be my social secretary?' he probed.

'I think if they have the opportunity to meet you, even for a few moments, you'll have more loyalty from them than you'll ever get out of people serving a fancy chair.  I know what--'  His breath died.  He swallowed.  'I know what people say about s-symbols.  You can be more than that.'

He should have had Heero in the room.  There were cameras, of course there were cameras, and Heero would be viewing the recording later, but Zechs could have used live interpretation.  In another man he'd have called this a pitch.  Did Winner think he had something to bargain for?  Something left to bargain with?  Now that was curious.

He indulged it, to see which limb Winner picked for his climbing.  'I don't intend to conduct my affairs from this office alone.'

'The longer you wait the more time they'll have to make assumptions about you.  They all knew Relena.  They loved her.  And they knew and loved your father.  They don't know who you are yet, what you'll change, what you'll do.  They're uneasy.  People fear what they don't know.'

'Maybe I should have you organise an ice cream social.'

'You could do worse.'

'But you could do better.  Isn't that what you're saying?'

Winner's long eyelashes fluttered.  He did look like an angel, Zechs thought, Heero's surprisingly fanciful assessment.  Vulnerable, hovering on the cusp of manhood, just the faintest dusting of golden stubble on his upper lip.  'I will serve in whatever capacity you see fit,' Winner said.

Zechs made a rude sound, amused that Winner had anticipated his thoughts.  'Oh, I imagine you would.  Like your little friend serves Khushrenada?'

There was the reaction he'd been pushing for all week.  Red flared up from Winner's collar, flushing those high cheeks red and then washing them icy pale a moment later.  Winner clenched his hands to white knuckles in his lap.

'Have I made you angry?'

Winner said nothing.  The sheer effort of his silence seemed to suck all the air from the room.

'I see that I have.'  Interesting.  Very interesting.  'Now I'm troubled.  Do you ride, Winner?'

'Ride?'  Winner exhaled on a cough.  Managed to look up, though not at Zechs.  'Ride animals?  No, your Highness.'

'Why not?  I assume you've received a classical education.'

'In the colonies.  An animal large enough to be ridden would-- be a waste of resources.'

'You were not educated in the colonies.'

Winner was all raw nerve now, and that struck something too, the boy's chest rising and falling too quickly under his stiff uniform shirt.  'Only for five years, in England.  Not quite six years.'

'Yet you don't ride.'  Zechs stood.  'You'll learn now then.  Come along.'  He was to the door by the time Winner was even gripping the arms of his chair, bewildered by the change.  'Come,' Zechs repeated firmly, and Winner responded to the order, clutching his dossier.  As Zechs led the way into the hall, a pair of security personnel broke position to trail them.  One spoke quietly into the tranciever strapped to his shoulder, and Winner glanced back, distracted.  'Ignore them,' Zechs advised.  'They're here to protect me.'

'From me,' Winner said, almost soundless, and Zechs laughed.  It was, he decided, as ridiculous a thought as it sounded.  Treize was quite probably right after all, damn him.

The stables were only temporary, and only housed six horses.  Zechs' grandfather had bred a stable of prize mounts, show horses and racers of the finest quality.  Isen, the pure white Arabian gifted to him by Treize, would go to stud within the next year or two.  The colt tossed his head when he scented Zechs, and came eagerly to the gate, stripping the wooden sides of his stalls with sharp impatient teeth.  'Hullo, my strong lad,' Zechs murmured to the horse, stroking his thick coarse mane.  'It's been too long.  Winner,' he said over his shoulder.  'You'll take Celestina.  The roan mare.'

It was evident from the way Winner stared about that he didn't know what that meant.  Flinching back when Vortex thrust his chocolately head over the gate to snap at him sealed Zechs' determination that Winner was telling the truth about his lack of familiarity with horses.  He reeked of beginner's fear.  'Yes, sir.'

'I thought it was Highness. Or was it Majesty?'

'Whichever you prefer.'

'I prefer neither.'

Zechs stood back as a stablehand carried the saddle and bridle into Isen's stall.  Another was fetching tack for Winner, giving him the side-eye to measure the stirrups.  Zechs exchanged his boots for the pair he wore for riding, chaps and helmet magically fetched as all things seemed to be when he expressed a desire for them.  His indoor coat was whisked away and the casual quilted jacket held waiting for him to shrug on.

'Your shoes are inappropriate,' Zechs told Winner as he strapped the helmet in place and donned his gloves.  'Order yourself another pair.  And equestrian attire as well.  English style.'  He took a helmet from the rack and tossed at Winner.  'Rush the delivery.'

Winner stumbled his way into the boots the stablehand offered him, his uniform trousers bunching and pulling as he tried to settle quickly.  'Yes, sir. Where are we riding?'

'You wanted people to see me.'

Winner looked up.  'Around the grounds, then?'

'For now.  When you're a better rider, we'll venture outside of the estate.'  That was motivation.  Winner's eyes lit, fierce for just a second.  Winner looked away, and then he was busy being boosted into the saddle, swaying clumsily for balance.

Zechs mounted with the ease of long practise.  Isen danced excitedly, crisp hoofbeats on the packed dirt of the stableyard.  He guided Isen in a pair of tight circles, relishing the flow of muscle and strength that bound rider and horse together.  Winner made it out of the stables only because he was walked out by the stablehands, who were feeding him quiet instructions as he flailed.  Zechs interrupted.  'Look at me,' he commanded, and Winner did.  Celestina sensed a bad mount on her back and, deeply unimpressed, kicked and even bucked, though the stablehands yanked her down by the bridge.  'Be still!' Zechs said firmly, as Winner lurched off the mare's back and was only barely rescued by the man below him.  His tone worked on both Winner and Celestina; they froze in place.

Winner gasped as he was pushed upright.  'I told you I don't ride.'

'Be still.'  Calmly.  Quietly.  'You are in command of that animal.  Is that understood?'

Several deep breaths.  Celestina obeyed, more or less, when Winner took back the reins, and Zechs guided him through another circle around the yard, using Isen to crowd Celestina against the outer fence and keep her tame til she settled.  Winner managed not to fall off again, and exerted some shaky control by the time they completed their third circuit.

'Ready now?'

'I'm sure I'll improve, your Highness.'

'We're going toward the ridge, then we'll go wide around the gardens.  You'll make it.'  Winner was wise enough not to contradict him.  That, too, was an order, and Winner obeyed.

The pound of the surf kept them company as they rode.  Security followed them at a distance, also mounted, and the armoured car appeared at the near end of the lot as an emergency procedure.  Heero had been thorough and thoroughly paranoid in his new position, and had left his cynical mark over every aspect of Zechs' world.  Why he was so convinced Zechs made a prime target for assassination was not entirely clear to Zechs.  Sanq had symbolic importance, but little enough would change within his kingdom if he were killed.  Relena would return as ruler, and the monarchy would live on through her line.  He was quit of Preventers now, and his political association with Treize was valuable, but no longer irreplacable.  Still, Zechs hardly made a move that wasn't watched by several pairs of impassive eyes, weapons alert for the slightest threat.  Every now and then Zechs caught the red glowing dot of a rifle sight on Winner's back.  No second chances.

They put the palace to their flank and rode into the sunlight.  They moved at little more than a brisk walk, though Zechs occasionally gave Isen his head and let him run a few hundred yards.  When Winner caught him up again, squinting into the glare, Zechs said, 'Tell me more about this strategy of yours.  This business with the staff.'

He didn't truly care; it was more a test to see if Winner had thought it through before he'd launched it, or if it was impulsively done.  He supposed it wasn't too surprising that Winner answered immediately.  'There's talk about the reorganisation of staff.  You brought in some of your own people, and they've been changing a great deal.  There's resentment and misunderstanding.'

'On both sides?'

'Yes, sir.  Your people, and especially the former Preventers here, they think it's deliberate-- not quite sabotage, but that the Sanqians are just being resistant.  And the Sanqians think they're going to be sent packing.  Or made to do things differently without good reason.'

'Hell,' Zechs muttered.  'Are they all children?'

'No, sir.  They're tired and many of them don't speak the same language and many of them fought a war on different sides.'

Petty.  He hadn't realised how many petty irritants would plague him when he took back his rightful throne.  Whatever vague ideas he'd had about ruling a kingdom had faded with the realisation that even command in Preventers had spared him idiocy at this scale.  The military had procedures, the military had operating standards.  Competing agendas only ran so far up the chain.  Treize had dealt with the worst of that.  He'd be damned if he'd go back to Treize for advice ever again.

To Winner, he said, 'And where do you stand amongst them?'

'Between.'  The answer had the ring of honesty, if not revelation.  'Some remember me from the war,' Winner elaborated, barely.  'On both sides.'

No, hardly a revelation at all.  'Can you gain their trust?'

'If when I have it I can be worthy of it.'

'Are you worthy of it?'

'I won't spy on them.  I won't gather information to manipulate them.'

'I haven't asked you to.'  Yet.  He might never get the loyalty he needed from Winner to accomplish that, but it might be manipulated in other ways.  He should definitely have had Heero with them, but he'd wanted to test the possibility of a personal connection.  'I'd like you to make peace amongst them,' Zechs said then.  'Isn't that what you're good at?'

'Is it?'  Winner winced at something, maybe the gait of his horse.  He didn't let that challenge linger long enough to land.  'It won't happen if it just comes from me.  They'll want, need, to know that it comes from you.  You're what binds them.'

'I'll do what's required.'

'Then it will fail.'

'And what exactly do you think should be done?'

'I think if you don't commit to this wholly and publicly and repeatedly they'll just do what they're absolutely required to do, and you'll never have a whole nation.'

Not a pitch.  A warning.  One Winner delivered without passion or even emotion.  Zechs considered him.  'I need to reassure the servants that I'm not going to let it all go to shit?'

'You need to assure them that they'll be greater than they've ever been.  That you have a vision.  That they can be part of that vision.  That they're an essential part of it, as citizens, as people.'

'You sound like Treize now,' Zechs said.

'The Field Marshal is a leader.'

'He's a puppetmaster.  I am not.'

'He inspires people to be greater than they think they can be.  You can, too.'

'And should I?  Why?'  Zechs brushed down Isen's mane where the breeze blew it across his proud neck.  'I wasn't prepared to be a king.  I was trained to be a soldier.  I've had my lifetime fill of Treize's kind of inspiration.  And I would think, given what you've been through, that you'd feel the same.'

'Yes, your Highness.'

'Stop calling me that.  It's twisted.'

'No, sir.  You are the ruler here.  It's proper.'

'When you can say it without a hitch in your voice, I'll believe you.'

'I'm sure you will, sir.'

'I had no driving need to rule here,' Zechs said.  'Do you believe that?'

Winner met his eyes voluntarily for the first time.  'No,' he said.

'Good,' Zechs said.  'But it's an important fiction.  A ruler serves his people.  As long as the people believe that, the contract between king and kingdom is sacrosanct.  And Sanq is everything holy to me.  I will do whatever I have to, to make this place what I know it can be.'

Winner nudged his mare into a canter.  'Now you sound like Treize, your Highness,' he said, and they took the downhill at a run.

 

 


	26. Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

The computer beeped as the quarter-hour download arrived. Duo gave the bookshelf a kick that propelled his chair rolling across the marble, twisting to arrive at his desk with his knees bumping the file cabinet. He tapped the keyboard and the green cursor began its pixellated journey across the screen. Urgent. Everything was always urgent. A couple of high security matters. Things tapered off in the evenings. People waited for full daylight to shoot each other. There hadn't been a food riot in a month. No major violence in the refugee camps. The colonies were quiet. Not the kind of quiet that anticipated trouble. Just-- quiet.

Duo knocked at Khushrenada's door and let himself in. The Field Marshal was on the phone, the teleconference pod glowing red. He glanced at Duo long enough to take the print-outs Duo carried. The footman was clearing dinner from the table by the hearth, and offered Duo a quick smile. 'Running late,' Vincent mouthed, and slipped Duo the biscuit tray on his way past.

'No,' Khushrenada said then, interrupting whoever was speaking. 'Table that. It's a non-issue.'

_'It's not a non-issue, sir, it's--'_

'Table it,' Khushrenada repeated, and that was that.

Duo had recognised Noin's voice. Interesting. The Field Marshal always let her push bounds he'd shoot someone else for crossing. Strategy, he called it. Duo didn't know, but strategy seemed to answer for less and less of what he saw lately. Like pretending whatever had happened on L1 hadn't. Like pretending an entire week had vanished from the record.

He transcribed notes into a boilerplate memo, cross-referenced a munitions report with the monthly expenditures, ate a chocolate digestive and brushed the crumbs from his pile of phone messages.  The computer beeped with the quarter-hour.  That was life, lived in fifteen minute increments.  He walked the print-outs in.  Khushrenada took them with an absent nod, and then it was back to business.

At seven twenty-three, the phone rang.  Duo punched the line and put the receiver to his ear, cradled in place by his shoulder.  'Maxwell for the Field Marshal.'

_'Duo.'_

It took him a moment.  Noin's voice he heard every other day.  Hadn't heard this one, saying his name like that, in a month or so.

'Your Highness,' he managed, brain kicking back on.  'He's in a meeting.  If it's urgent--'

 _'It's--'_   Zechs blew out a slow breath, fuzz against the connection.  _'It's not exactly urgent, but he needs to know.  Who's he on with?'_

'I, um.  I can't share that information with you anymore.'

 _'No, that's my mistake.  I forgot.'_   The pause was longer this time.  _'He's going to be upset.  When he asks, tell him we never updated the contact information.  These places are sticklers for that kind of thing.  We chose a place like that for a reason.  Remind him.  And then duck.'_

'Okay,' Duo said, surprised by that.  'So, uh-- am I getting him or not?'

_'Get him.  And clear his schedule.  Today and tomorrow.  Then go to the kitchen, I mean go personally, and ask for Andrej.  Tell him one of the reserve bottles from the cellar and only one, and then tell them to close the kitchen and empty the building.  Lights out and doors locked, no-one but the desk guard.  Treize will want to leave.  Don't let him.  Keep him in his office.  There's a cot in storage.  Bring it up on the service lift and have it ready.  You won't get him into it before dawn, so set it up somewhere dark that can seal off.  Do you have all that?'_

'Andrej, reserve bottle, kitchen, cot.  Why?  What's happening?'

 _'Une,'_ Zechs said.  _'She died.'_

Duo found himself holding his breath.  'Shit,' he whispered.

_'Yes.'_

'How?  I mean, I... I guess I assume not naturally?  Security--'

 _'No.  Natural causes.  Brain aneurysm.  A lot of pilots,'_ Zechs began, and trailed off.  _'A lot of pilots die that way.  God knows she saw enough action.  We should probably all be getting regular scans.  Someone recommended that, a couple of years ago, I don't recall the name.  It didn't fit in the budget.'_

'Yeah,' Duo said, more from the sense that the silence was begging for something.

_'All right.  Put me through.  Duo-- it should be understood.  Don't listen in.  Secure line.  And contain this.  He'll decide what and when it gets out when he's ready.'_

Duo put the line on hold.  He checked his cuffs and his collar.  Rubbed his hands on his thighs to dry his palms.  He knocked, and let himself in.

'Hang up,' he told Khushrenada.

The Field Marshal glanced up from his notes.  'Not now, Mr Maxwell.'

Duo took a pad from the edge of the desk and borrowed Khushrenada's pen right out of his hold.  He wrote, _White Pepper_ , and underlined it twice.  Khushrenada had already read it upside down by the time Duo handed it over, and his face was grim.

It was in the same spot on the desk it had always occupied.  The red folder.  Kirkbride Asylum.  Duo tugged it out from under a dossier and a folded map and an envelope containing undeveloped rolls of film, and he put it centre on the desk, between Khushrenada's hands laying flat on the creased leather mat.

'I'm being called away,' Khushrenada said, and tapped the teleconference pod off without anything further.  'What.'

'Phone call,' Duo told him.  'Line two.  Zechs.'

Maybe that flicker was suspicion.  Some kind of foreknowledge or anticipation.  Khushrenada touched the edge of the red folder.

'I'll be outside,' Duo said, and hated himself a little for that, and it was wrong, anyway.  'I mean, um.  I'm going to run an errand.  I'll, uh, I'll be back in a minute.  Line two.'

'Thank you,' Khushrenada murmured, and he was picking up the phone as Duo walked out, turning his chair to face the dark night outside the grand gold window frame.

 

 

**

 

 

The cot looked about as comfortable as a rusty combination of springs and sackcloth could do.  Duo had broken into a couple of linen cupboards to raid sheets and blankets, confirming his suspicion there were bedrooms somewhere in the building.  It was tempting, to use this unprecedented privacy to finally explore, but an empty building didn't mean the cameras were down, and anyway--

And, anyway, he was curious.  Maybe more than curious.  He wasn't sure entirely what was going on in his gut, burbling away in the back of his mind, but there was something there, and it was ugly.  Unresolved.

It was pushing ten o'clock when he ventured back to his office.  He'd missed several quarter-hour dumps, but a quick scroll didn't identify anything that needed action.  The door was closed.  He approached it warily.  The light was on still.  Duo set his ear to the wood.  He couldn't hear anything, which meant either that the door wasn't hollow-core or wasn't wood at all, something he'd been suspecting a while.  But neither answer was helpful.  He checked his watch.  Zechs hadn't said anything about staying here the whole time, but there'd been a whole lot of instructions that hinted his presence was necessary.  So much for a sound night's sleep.  They'd been in short supply, lately.

Well, he'd been stupid enough to ask for the job, after all.

The reserve bottle was on the desk.  Some kind of Cyrillic label.  Duo had made a few stabs at the alphabet when he had a free minute.  It was beyond him at the moment, but it was pretty obviously vodka.  The whiff was strong.  The bottle was half empty.  A weaker man would have been under the desk an hour ago.  Khushrenada had steady hands, at least, lifting that heavy crystal glass to his lips.  There was the slightest gleam of perspiration on his neck.  The cowlick had flopped over his forehead and drooped dispiritedly.

Duo dropped the print-outs into the inbox.  'These can wait til tomorrow,' he said.  He touched a finger to the rim of the bottle.  'You going to drink the rest of that?'

Khushrenada jumped.  His eyes skittered over Duo as if just noticing his entrance, though Duo hadn't been trying to be quiet.  He stirred, a little, shifting position in his chair, sank down with his glass on his belly.  He said, 'Quite probably.'

'I'll cancel your appointments for tomorrow morning.'

He'd expected protest.  Khushrenada barely acknowledged it.  'Thank you,' he replied, sipping again.

Steady voice, too.  Not bad, for a man who'd been cutting back recently.  Duo stood there hesitating.  Zechs had made this sound a lot worse.  Hell, Khushrenada had reacted more when Major Sogran had committed suicide by Preventer.

Another sip.  Khushrenada said, 'Call for something.  Bread.  Whatever.'

Hadn't noticed the mass exodus of staff.  Duo's uncertainty tilted back toward the 'impending doom' category.  'Pizza?' Duo asked.

Khushrenada's grimace was ever so slightly too broad.  'No.'

'Okay,' Duo said, and walked backward a few steps until he felt the rug end and hardwood floor begin, and then he hurried a little more than he meant to and shut the door to his own office a little louder than was wise, and stood leaning on it like Khushrenada might come chasing after him.  It didn't happen, of course.  He just stood there, hearing nothing but his own breathing, and wondering when he'd turned so shit in a crisis.

That was the thing, though.  Crisis.  It was.  He could feel it.  Whether it exploded in bloodshed or just emotional goo, it was going to explode.  He could taste it.  That part of him was still functioning.

It took a while for the pizza to arrive; Duo had the impression no-one had ever delivered takeaway to a Preventers location before.  He had to meet the driver on the front steps.  There would have been security checks on the pie, if anyone had been left.  As it was, Duo bypassed the lone guard with nothing but a nod.  He climbed the spiral stairs, walked the loft in the eerie emptiness.  He robbed the kitchen cart for cloth napkins and two glass bottles of ginger beer that were probably meant for cocktails, since there were no kids hanging around.  Maybe that would change.  He could picture an eight-year-old tot drawing on the walls around here.  She'd probably be drafting Mein Kampf in coloured marker.

Duo took a moment to get himself under control.  Non-confrontational.  Only option.

Khushrenada looked up from his deep contemplation of a newly filled glass.  Duo supposed the smell had announced him.  Anchovies were like that.  'What is all that?' Khushrenada asked slowly.  He seemed to have just the tiniest amount of difficulty focussing on Duo.  Duo's pizza box.  Duo's left shoulder.  Duo's eyes, before Khushrenada turned away and took three big swallows.

'Dinner,' Duo replied.  'Come sit over here.'  He set the pizza and ginger beer on the seat of one of the chairs, and tossed the cushions to the floor.  He grabbed a poker to jab at the fire, inexpertly breaking the log in half.  'Close enough.'

'Are you mad?'  Delicately snide.  That was considerable emotional nuance, granting the state of the vodka bottle.

Duo only shrugged.  'Should I be mad?' he asked, deliberately taking the other meaning.

'I shall be, if you don't start acting like the secretary I hired you to be.'

Duo sat on a pillow.  'It's eleven fifteen.  We were both off the clock at least four hours ago.  Don't give me some bullshit about you're never off the clock so neither am I.  You're drunk and I'm hungry so sit your ass down and eat.'

It took a while.  Duo busied himself with a series of made-up tasks, breaking the pizza box along the perforations to turn the lid into an impromptu platter, breaking the caps on the ginger beer, shaking the napkins out of their folds and refolding them when that didn't buy him enough time.  He picked a piece of pizza for himself, two anchovies angled like arrows toward the point.  He twirled greasy strings of cheese around his thumb and sucked them off.

The chair behind him creaked.  Legs scraping on the floor.  Footsteps, even enough, though they slowed, as Khushrenada joined him in front of the fireplace.  He let himself down clumsily, and put his back to bar, knees curled in to his chest before he found a comfortable rest, one boot propped against the brass filigree mantle.  He'd left the vodka behind him, or just hadn't been up to the job of carrying it all that way without spilling.  His face was slack, his eyes unblinking.  For a moment, Duo thought of the root cellar, that cold intimate moment in the dark in Siberia, but this was nothing like that, not really.  That had been a man at the height of his strength, laying out the world in his own design.  It took seeing the opposite to realise how much effort that had really been.

Duo said, 'Shitty day.'  He folded his pizza slice, cheese oozing from the sides, and bit a hole in the middle.

Khushrenada took a slice of his own.  It flopped on the napkin Duo tossed his way, leaving an imprint of oil.  He shredded the crust, eating it sliver by sliver.  Duo took it as progress, and nudged one of the bottles in his direction.

Definitely progress.  Khushrenada spoke unsolicited, turning the sweating bottle in his fingers.  'She was fourteen when I found her.'

Leaping right in.  Khushrenada had had hours to wallow in it and he'd come up with that.  Fourteen.  'Was she always so...'  The phrase that occurred to him was 'short bus'.  He came up with, 'High strung?'

Khushrenada gave a hard little snort.  'Oh, yes.  Very much so.  I found her lighting a dog's tail on fire.'

That did not shock.  'A real Girl Scout, huh?'

'She should have been scrubbed in pre-screening.  She fooled the exams.  Une.  Anne.  Ian.'

'Why'd you keep her on?'

'Mutually beneficial exploitation.  We were very useful to each other, my dear Une and I.'

Some acid-flavoured honesty to cut the greasy pizza.  'When she wasn't being a liability,' Duo guessed, peeling an achovy and dropping it back into the box.

'There is no tool which does not require careful use.'  Khushrenada sipped the ginger beer.  'When she was no longer so useful, I put her aside.  She went quietly, you know.  She never protested.'

'She knew it was coming.'

Duo hadn't really meant that as a conversation-ender, but it was.  Khushrenada managed to eat half a piece, before he went a little green around the gills, and made even less progress on his drink.  He fell to staring at the fire, which was on its way out.  Duo stabbed the poker into the log, breaking it in half.  The thicker end fell through the grate and went dark.  There was a pile of newspapers in the bucket, but it didn't seem worth it, even with the cold seeping in.

'I don't believe in guilt,' the Field Marshal announced suddenly.  'There's no room for guilt alongside ambition.'

'Good thing, I guess,' Duo muttered, picking a second slice, smaller than his first.  He wasn't really hungry and it was curdling faster than it went down.  'You don't do either very gracefully.  So what's this all about then?'

'Do you have regrets, Mr Maxwell?  I speak of personal regrets.  Dirty hands.'

'Plenty of them.'  If he hadn't already believed it, he was sure now Khushrenada was drunk.  Confessionals were almost too cliche.  Duo kept his eyes on his hands, which were lily damn white by comparison, and told himself he could punch a wall and pretend it was Khushrenada's balls later.  'That doesn't change anything.'

'No.  Exactly.'

'She would have died anyway.'

Maybe that was too harsh.  Khushrenada inhaled, and didn't exhale.  He dropped his mutilated pizza back into the box and meticulously wiped his fingers.  'Thank you.  For the food.'

'I paid for it out of petty cash.'

The Field Marshal made his ponderous way to his feet with the help of the furniture.  'Uncancel those appointments.  I'll make them.'

'I don't think so, cowboy.'  Duo scrambled up.  'I have a cot thing set up for you--'

'They will be watching me for weakness.'  Khushrenada slammed a hand on the bar, rattling the sloshy ice bucket and knocking over a wine glass.  'I'll make the appointments.'

Duo watched him; that was still rational, but getting a lot closer to the edge.  'If you look hungover in the morning, they'll have proof of what they might only suspect if you cancel.'

'Then I'll have to not look hungover in the morning.'

'I know a good make-up artist.'

There it was.  Actual pain in Khushrenada's face, a moue of tight lips and eyes squeezed shut.  He held Duo off with an upraised hand.  It was a plea, not an order.  Somewhere in that unhealthy swirl of lard and late-night weltschmerz he watched, disjoined from the corporeality of the act, his own hand rise.  He closed his fingers around Khushrenada's wrist.  Then slowly slid his hand to Khushrenada's.  Palm to palm. Laced fingers.  Slowly lowered it to Khushrenada's side.  'I'll have coffee set up for eight.'

Khushrenada stared at him.  Duo waited for it.  The hard swallow and the nod.

Duo let go.  'I have a cot set up for you.  Get some sleep.'

Khushrenada made a move to the desk on the left, jerkily, stabbed his glasses onto his face and began moving things around.  He said, 'I can't move Barton to Sanq.'

That came out of no-where.  And it came like the grille of a humvee in the teeth.  'What?'

'Barton, I can't have him moved--'

'I, no, I heard, I.'  He couldn't recover if he couldn't see what the shit had hit him.  'Okay.  Yeah.  I know.  You explained that already.'

'I don't believe in love, either.'

'Sometimes things exist whether we believe in them or not.'

'Then we should both be wary of the hereafter.'

'Maybe so.'

'Don't think I don't know why you're here,' Khushrenada spat harshly.

'Yeah,' he said, digging the balls of his thumbs into his eyeballs.  'That makes one of us then.'

'He was a boy.  Standing in my way.  He _flinched_.'

God.  Okay.  That was coming full circle with a vengeance.  He wanted to laugh, for a crazy second, but everything was crazy, everything was fucked, and he'd left that knife in his room so he wouldn't be tempted to stab Khushrenada if they ever crossed this line again.  Here they were.  He had a do-over and he could have wept over it.

He forced the words out through clenched jaws.  'It could have gone either way.  Wufei knew the rules.  If I don't put that pizza away it will stink up the office permanently.'

Khushrenada caught a clue.  He was blinking rapidly behind his lenses, still, now.  He nodded, and that was that.  Duo picked up the pizza and the rest of the mess and walked it all the way out to the bins in the kitchen, two floors down and across the entire damn building.  He washed his hands in the sink and splashed his face with frozen water, and he stood there with his eyes closed in the dark wondering if anyone would really chase him all that hard if he just kept walking out into the night.

The vodka was gone as if it had never been when he returned.  Khushrenada had cleaned himself up, too, and this time the shit he was moving around on his desk was actually pertinent.  He didn't look up when Duo joined him, snapping his portfolio.  'Uncancel those appointments.  Have the coffee sent at six.'

'Six.'  This violated most of what Zechs had told him.  Zechs, Duo decided, could fuck himself, and Khushrenada too.  'Okay.'

'They'll call for arrangements.  Whatever seems standard and suitable.'

'Arrangeme-- Une.  Uh, Kirkbride.  Yeah.  You want me to copy you on--'

'No.'

Duo nodded.  'I'll see to it.'

'Good night.'

Their shoulders brushed, as Khushrenada passed him.  Ions on ions.  Duo's gut rolled over, gave it up for dead, and he was too damn tired to punch any walls after all.

He slept on the cot what was left of the night, and tried not to notice the pillow was wet whenever he turned his face.


	27. Quatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'I find art numbing,' Prince Milliardo said.

Quatre looked up from his PDA.  The King-to-Be was sat for his official portrait wrapped in his royal regalia, a cloak of ermine spread like a wedding train over the arm of his throne and pooled to a gentle curve three steps below on the dais.  In his left hand he held a silver sceptre, and in the right, an orb about the size of an apple, gold and topped with a jewelled cross.  The symbolically empty scabbard rode his hip, and his polished boots were crossed with slender gold chains, to evoke the monarch's sacred bounds to his kingdom.  He wore a diadem of pearl and jasper that together formed a wreath of olive leaves.

'You make a very pretty picture,' Quatre replied.

The Prince grimaced.  'Warning,' he muttered, rolling his head carefully on his neck, trying not to disturb the lay of his long pale hair.  'I'll order you to sit as my body double.'

'I'm not tall enough, Highness.'

'You're how old?  Seventeen?'

'Eighteen,' he said.

'You'll grow,' the Prince said, rather as if it were a decision he had in his power to make, and was feeling magnanimous.

'Yes, Sire,' Quatre agreed, 'against all evidence.'

A bark of laughter answered him.  The Prince often laughed at what he said, particularly when Quatre wasn't actually trying to be funny.  'I'm done with this,' the Prince announced then, and his major domo, Madam Sigrid, emerged from the shadow to reclaim the royal jewels, locking them away in their chest and whisking it off to be chained away in a tower or whatever happened to such riches.  Milliardo burst off his throne in a minor explosion of energy, tossing away the furs and striding with his bootheels striking the floor like gunshots, smack smack smack.  He was on Quatre before Quatre could consider, say, running away.  So he stood his ground, his PDA clenched in his fist, as the Prince bore down and came to a halt mere inches away, towering over him.

'You've completed your interviews of the Sanquian staff?'

Quatre looked down at the little glowing screen.  'Nearly, your Highness.'

'No-one lurking in the wings, hoping to assassinate me and reinstate my sister?'

'No, your Highness.  One or two I shouldn't think we'll have back, but that's more a matter of poor performance reviews than undesirable assocations.'

'You do say "we", now,' the Prince said thoughtfully.  'I've noticed.'

Quatre glanced up.  'Should I-- should I not?'

'I take it as a sign that you've accepted your lot here.  Should _I_ not?'

Quatre bowed, as much as he could, with the Prince crowding him.  'I didn't think my lot was to accept or reject anything, your Highness.'

The Prince scowled down at him.  'You seem to imagine a few slippery words will confound me, Winner.  Either you believe I'm unutterably simple, or you are, and that's the best you can do.'

Madam Sigrid was back.  She watched, unobtrusive where she stooped to pick up the cape and pass it off to the valets.  She didn't interfere.  No-one ever interfered, even Heero, who had been leaning against the wall for an hour without so much as blinking, and stayed there even now, one hand resting just beside his hip holster.

Abruptly the Prince lost interest in the game.  He was gone a moment later, the smack smack smack of his boots on the marble floors echoing in his wake.  Heero trailed after him, but Quatre waited to breathe til the door settled closed behind them.

'Is his Highness usually of such a temper?'

The artist, and speaking in the Sanquian dialect, which perhaps indicated he hadn't understood the exchange.  Quatre didn't bet on it.  'His Highness is of an impatient nature,' he replied, in kind, and turned off the PDA.  'May I?' he asked, gesturing to the artist's canvas.

'Please.  You think it is a good likeness?'

It was.  It could hardly be otherwise.  Milliardo Peacecraft was a man in his prime, his youth and beauty in their bloom.  He was everything masculine, broad shoulders and powerful limbs, and the painting, half-sketch as it still was, captured that aura of wild jungle lion.  The solemnity of the face was the only real fib, Quatre thought, but even that was all part of the glamour of the piece.  The Prince only rarely wore any expression at all, as if he'd used it all up and had no more left.

'What flowers are those?' Quatre asked, pointing to the lower right hand corner of the portrait.  There were no flowers in the throne room at present, in the depths of winter.  Holly berries and pine hung in boughs from the windows and railings, but the great brass urns to either side of the throne were empty.

The artist began to pack up his paints.  'Hibiscus,' he said.  His eyes flicked over Quatre, and away.  'Have you been to the Galleria?  There is an exhibition just now.  A very fine collection.  In fact, I have a group of friends who plan to attend a special salon, a viewing and a discussion afterward.  We go tonight, if you would care to join us.'

'Me?'

'Just a small group,' the artist said, rinsing his brushes in a glass of water and carefully drying them.  'I think you would be very interested in our discussion.  We would be so glad to have you.'

It was not as subtly done as the young man no doubt imagined it was.  If the Prince or especially Heero had remained behind, they would have guessed in an instant that it was coded, and not especially cryptic.  The young man had taken quite a risk, getting his attention at all, and perhaps had been trying for days, that painting so temptingly on view where anyone might see it.

'May I suggest peonies,' Quatre said.  'For the portrait.  I believe they were a great favourite with her Majesty, the Prince's mother.'  He bent to pick up the drop cloth, folding it and passing it.  He took the tiny slip of paper under the guise of that exchange, and kept it hidden in his palm.  'When you're ready, sir, I'll walk you out.  We need to sign you out of the guest register and return your badge.'

 

 

**

 

 

It was no great difficulty getting out of the Palace.  He had free reign, if he chose to view it as freedom.  He had to badge onto the shuttle, and any of a hundred people might recognise the lone Preventer liaison and find reason to casually report his presence in town, his destination, his companions.  He came into town sometimes for meals, or more often groceries, for simple salads or sandwiches to eat alone in his suite at night, and he didn't veer from that habit now.  He stopped at the small market he always did, to bag winter carrots and squash and a round of sharp Sanquian cheese and a bottle of juice, a box of loose tea and a jug of milk.  He went to the library, to return the single book he'd checked out last week, and to choose another; he read nothing suspicious, knowing that, too, would be reported, but chose a book from the rack of popular novels near the door, and wasted no time at it.  He stopped at the post office, to buy a post card with a sunset view over the Bay, as he did every week.  He never mailed them, he never purchased stamps that would allow him to mail anything, and anyone who cared to inspect his suite would find each postcard displayed above his bed, tacked into the corkboard, nothing written on the backs.  He was sure someone was, in fact, responsible for that inspection.  He had formed his patterns early, deviated just enough to make it seem random, and in all respects refrained from speaking too long to anyone, the way a lonely, isolated man in a strange city would do.

This would be a change.  Change would be noticed.  Anything that gained him notice would gain him suspicion.

He climbed the steps to the Galleria, and paid for his ticket.  His hands were sweating.  He looped his shopping bag tight about his wrist, and ventured in.

The lights were bright, after the twilight out of doors.  Even as he paced from the lobby through the first display, they were being lowered, and most casual visitors were on their way out, the tourists arguing over dinner destinations and the lone security guard hiding a sleepy yawn.  Quatre let the noise wash over him and fall away.  The walls weren't white, but a kind of warm mauve, and the dark wood of the floors covered with worn rugs to muffle footfalls made for muted experience.  He wandered without much attention to the individual frames hanging on the walls, absorbing impression rather than detail.  He had no sense of how far he'd walked or even where he was when he realised he had stopped, and stood before a tall painting of vivid red that was quite alone at the end of a corridor.

'Paul Klee.'

Quatre remembered to breathe.  He turned his head.  The artist was beside him, the young man from the palace.  In blue jeans and a patched wool coat he could have been any university student, a little scruffy and winkingly handsome.  'I'm sorry?' Quatre asked.

'Paul Klee.  He painted this.  It's called Flower Myth.  It's a sort of faerie night, you see.  The moon there, this dream world.  Do you like it?'

'There's no people.'

'In the painting?'  The artist had faced him.  Quatre didn't quite feel up to that, yet.  'No,' the man said.  'No people.  He did paint people, but not in this one.'

'I don't have much time.'  They were speaking Sanquian, and since the Prince had let go most of the native staff and not yet rehired any, it would likely be a while before anyone translated their conversation, but there was no good giving them something to translate.  'I still have some work to review tonight.  You said your friends were here?'

'They gave us one of the staff rooms.  We have wine-- do you drink?'

'I-- I'm not legal,' Quatre said, and everything tipped into absurdity.  The artist grinned at him, suddenly, and held out a hand.

'I'm Pieke,' he said.  'We were never properly introduced.'

'Quatre.'  Pieke hadn't offered a surname, so Quatre didn't.  'You'll understand,' Quatre said then, switching to English.  'I'm here as me.  Not anything else you might think that I am.'

That occasioned a flicker of surprise.  Then paranoia, and then, in a flash, comprehension.  Pieke stared sideways at the painting, the flower.  After a moment, he nodded.

'Still,' he said, in accented English, confirming he did, in fact, grasp Quatre's point.  'We'd be glad to have you.  Art and wine are good for making friendships, yes?  Well, we can get you some fizzy water, maybe.  You'll have to join us when we take a tour in Spain.  Drinking age is eighteen, there.  So, you like ladies?  We have some ladies eager to meet you.'

'Um, not really.  I'm happy to meet-- I--'

'Ah,' Pieke said, and his grin grew.  'We have some eager boys, too.'

Eager boys would be good cover.  Quatre forced a smile and a modest little blush.  He'd practised in the mirror, til it felt natural, not too wide, not too bright.  'That's kind,' he said.

'This way.  You don't really have to leave early, do you?  Surely even Preventers relax sometimes.'

They passed through a door marked 'Private' and into what was clearly a conference room of sorts, though the table had been moved to the wall and was stacked high with bottles of wine and plastic glasses.  Pieke was greeted with cheers, and Quatre's presence was rewarded with a rush of welcoming handshakes and, yes, eager introductions.  A dozen names flew at him in rapid succession, someone pressed a cup into his hand, which Pieke promptly removed, and someone else replaced it with another, and over all the chatter no-one much minded that Quatre listened more than he spoke.  It wasn't til Pieke called for a toast that Quatre let himself fade into the background, finding a chair on the edge of the crowd and raising his cup with a shaking hand.

'To new beginnings,' Pieke said.  'And to new friends.  And to whatever the future may bring, and to the strength of all of us here to help bring the future to being.'

More than one eye turned admiringly, expectantly in Quatre's direction.  He raised his cup in a toast.

'To the future,' he echoed, and pretended not to notice that no-one drank til he did.


	28. Trowa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Hey there, boyo.'

Trowa didn't raise his head.  He swept his mop in a wide arc across the tile, right over the pair of boots a cautious three feet away.  A splash of muddy wet splattered when it hit the shoes.  Trowa dunked his mop back in the bucket, and didn't say sorry.

Ralph Kurt grimaced, but didn't push it.  He let Trowa get a little farther up the hall before he followed, wisely keeping out of range of a second dousing, and thoughtfully steering clear of the damp sheen of clean floor.  Ralph had both hands in his pockets, maybe to conceal a weapon, maybe to show he was vulnerable to any fast moves, it was impossible to know in a glance.  Trowa did glance him over, thoroughly, from beneath lowered lashes.  Kurt stared back guilelessly.  So.  Starting out on a fresh lie, then.

'Heard at all from Quatre?'

Trowa didn't answer.  The suds in his bucket had more or less run out.  He added a fresh stream of washing up fluid to the dingy water and swished the mop in it til it bubbled again.  Ralph didn't immediately follow when Trowa rolled the bucket around the corner, and Trowa listened tensely til he heard footsteps.  Ralph appeared again, put a shoulder to the wall next to the corkboard with the most recent posters for everything from coupons for the PX to reminders to put in medical compensation claims before the March deadline.  One hand out of its pocket now, to draw the cigarette from over his right ear, withdraw a lighter from his shirt and snick it on.  He lit the smoke and puffed out a faint cloud.

'I asked around a bit,' he said then, to Trowa's back.  'About his re-assignment.'

There was no obvious reason for that.  Ralph had got what he wanted out of Quatre, presumably, or what his superiors wanted.  Quatre's abrupt disappearance made that clear.  Whatever they'd been doing with Quatre, whatever game they'd been playing between Quatre and whoever they'd used Quatre to reach, it had ended with that shoot-out between Khushrenada and Major Sogran.  Everything that had happened afterward had been clean-up.  Wherever they'd locked Quatre away, he wouldn't come back until they wanted to use him again.  That was how it worked.

'I know where he is,' Ralph said.

Trowa had tried to find out.  He'd found some of Quatre's messages-- he didn't know how many there had been, but they'd been clear.  Quatre had been taken by surprise, and they'd moved him without indicating where.  'How,' Trowa asked, not looking up, or at least not directly.  He noted Ralph's body language.  Calm.  Wary.  But calm.  He didn't think Ralph was that good a liar, not really.  Quatre should have figured him out at first blush, but Quatre was stupid like that.

Had been.

Better to think that way.  If he tried, he could push all the feeling away entirely.  Put it away in a little box and drown it.

Had to.

Ralph smoked his cigarette in silence, til it was just a little glowing stub.  He looked around for a receptacle, and sighed.  He ground it out against the sole of his boot and tucked the butt back over his ear.  'All right then,' he muttered.  'You know where to find me, if you decide blamin' him for the end of the world is stupid.'  He didn't wait for an answer, which maybe meant he'd grown just a little smarter than the last time Trowa had seen him, squalling in the dirt with a gun in his face.  Or it meant Ralph was confident he had the upper hand.

Trowa mopped over the ashy footprint Ralph had left, and pushed his bucket down the hallway.  He had to be done by nine to report for Watch.

 

 

**

 

 

The changes were slow, going mostly unremarked. For most people, they probably didn't notice the tally of small, unimportant alterations. Trowa noticed. They were, after all, aimed at him.

They stopped serving the coffee in pots. Now they brought it out in big urns, three per meal shift. Everyone drank from the same area, and the creamer and sugar dispensers were central, too. In the same week, they stopped serving water bottles out of the buffet queue, and set out plastic dispensers at the central table. It looked like cutbacks. Cheaper.

Two weeks later, one of the cafeteria staff was fired. No-one much noticed that, either. Then all the staff were gone, and the food was handled by a contractor. Apparently the meals got better-tasting, so everyone noticed that. Trowa held back, confining himself to caution and careful testing. The contractor liked stand-alone buffets, not server-operated. They re-arranged the cafeteria, brought in long tables covered with clean white cloths, pretty silver dishware operated safely by electric heaters. Waiters in smocks and chef hats ran an omelete station in the mornings and a carving station for suppers, but everything else was self-serve. Trowa ate a lot of instant oatmeal for a while, slowly branching out. The advantage of a contractor to him, personally, was obvious-- they didn't know Trowa Barton from Jack Jackson, first of all. If they didn't know, they couldn't care about what he ate. And if they didn't care about it, they wouldn't be looking for ways to poison it or mess with it, and ergo Trowa.

It occurred to him, slowly, that it was a little too neat.

A little too-- planned.

There were only so many people who would have planned it. A contractor who cooked everything off-site, a contractor who made everything tamper-proof by design. The only way to think of the things that had to be thought of, to arrive at a solution aimed at one specific problem, was to have been in position to experience that one specific problem.

Duo Maxwell.

He couldn't not eat, so there weren't many options for pulling away to regroup.  But he didn't know what it meant.  He'd used up whatever favours he might have been owed, there.  This was Duo-- what?  Trying to stack the deck?  Make an obligation Trowa would have to repay at some time of Duo's choosing?  He'd heard Duo had even been off-planet with Khushrenada.  That was extraordinary access for a former Gundam Pilot.  It added fuel to the fire that Duo was sleeping with the Field Marshal, at least in Trowa's opinion.  Duo hadn't wasted any time with General Merquise, and everyone had known what that was about.  Throwing around his weight on things like food was interesting, as power plays went, but it was still a play, and it meant the Marshal was looking for ways to keep Duo happy.  Men did that, in the early stages of a relationship, when they still cared how their lover felt about things.

But it made him wonder what was coming next.  There had to be a next.  And it occurred to him that Ralph Kurt approaching him was the next thing.  But that didn't make sense.  Whatever Kurt had been doing with Quatre didn't seem to be connected to anything Duo was doing with Khushrenada, if he could take those strange reactions that day of the shoot-out with Sogran as truth.  Trowa didn't take anything for truth, not even things he'd seen with his own eyes, words he'd heard with his own ears.  But maybe it was possible for both things to be true.  Ralph Kurt had been doing something with someone in Preventers that involved spying on their own troops, manoeuvring Quatre into some kind of exposed position and peole connected to Sogran with him.  All of that had come to a head around the time Duo got promoted to Khushrenada's aide.  And now a few months had passed and Merquise had moved out to Sanq, and maybe-- maybe things were changing.  Organisations far more stable than Preventers had been rocked by smaller developments.  Merquise leaving Preventers may have been planned, but Trowa would lay money that Khushrenada looked around the table and saw a void where a reliable supporting vote had used to sit.  Duo was an ally whether or not Khushrenada was sleeping with him, but he was young and he was low-ranking and he had been the enemy not all that long ago.  He wasn't a same-value trade for Merquise.

Maybe Ralph Kurt approaching him was about something altogether new.  Just like Duo making the gesture with the food contractor.  Resetting the board.  New pieces.  Trowa was the only Gundam Pilot left.

Ah.  When he thought of it from that angle, he understood.

And he understood his own value.  It had been a while since he'd had any.  But once he understood, he knew how to push his price higher.  That was the difference between him and Quatre.  He didn't have any silly ideas about innate worth getting in the way of his relativism.  It put him perfectly in line with the prevailing philosophy of Preventers.

 

 

**

 

 

Ralph didn't wait long to seek him out again.  Trowa had been watching for it, watching for covert surveillance, an untimely performance review, anything out of the ordinary.  The sudden introduction of unusually menial tasks that gave him a lot of alone time in dark empty buildings wasn't especially subtle.  He was on his guard for a week before Ralph got up the guts to approach him.

The night was stormy and Trowa was supervising the sub-pump in the new officer housing.  He'd been there before-- it was where Quatre had had all his secret meetings with Sogran's people, and Trowa almost disappointed they were that uncreative, setting him up for the same location-- and anybody halfway intelligent would question why an agent was needed to supervise routine maintenance, but expecting creativity out of Preventers was-- well.  They wouldn't be recruiting the last Gundam Pilot if they were interested in throwing off the scent.

Ralph was there, sitting on a bare plywood stair and smoking.  Trowa deliberately shone his torch in Ralph's face, to blind him.  Ralph groaned and muttered, rubbing his eyes.  Trowa sat beside him, tucking his hands between his knees.

'What do you want me to do?' he asked directly.

Ralph looked him sidelong, smoke dribbling from his nostrils.  'Not much for games, are you.'

'We can dance if you want to dance.'  He tapped the bulge in Ralph's pocket.  'What's that?'

Chocolate.  Good chocolate.  Trowa recognised it.  Quatre had brought it to him, several times, before Trowa had known where it came from.  He took it, when Ralph handed it over.  A few momentary impulses-- hurl it into the darkness, throw it back in Ralph's face, force it down his throat wrapper and all-- eat it, because for a second, just a second, he would remember how it tasted coating Quatre's fingers-- he let them flutter through him, and die.

'Where is he,' he said.  'You said you know where they moved him.'

'That information is free.'  Ralph tossed out his cigarette and shook another from a crumpled pack.  He offered, and Trowa declined.  'Nairobi,' Ralph said, lighting the new stick.  'Temporary assignment, though.  They're going to put him in London.  Cosmopolitan.  Urban.  Higher security, obviously.'  He shrugged.  'More controlled.  He won't have the freedom of movement he had here.  Hibiscus, you know, they're not organised, not really.  Just starting out.  They'll get their shit together eventually, but not yet.  Now's the opportunity to stop it getting that far.  They'll keep trying to get to Quatre, but there's no hiding in London.  Anyone tries to pull this kind of clandestine shite--'  He gestured between them with the glowing tip of the cigarette.  'Arrested.  Them and their entire families.  We'll root it out.'

'Fascinating,' Trowa said flatly.  'What do you want me to do?'

'Well, now.  That's fascinatin'.'  Ralph considered him.  'You have options.  You want to hear 'em, or you want me to just say what I think you ought to do, so you get back to your very interesting duties?  I know how much you hate actually talkin' to another human being.  Don't suppose you minded with Quatre.  Then again, don't suppose you ever spent much time actually talkin'.  The way that boy loves you.  Doesn't understand fuck all about you, but he loves you.'

'Options,' Trowa said.

'One.'  Ralph put up a finger.  'You take Quatre's place.  They'll be looking for someone in Preventers, now they've lost him and Sogran both.  Give them someone to talk to.  Someone to rally around.  We know there's more here.  You'll be our eyes on that situation.'

He could do that, if he had to.  It was smart of Preventers, looking to put someone in position to report on Hibiscus on base.  But Trowa wasn't Quatre, and they wouldn't rally around him the way they had someone like that.  Someone who could actually lead them.  'Option two,' Trowa questioned.

Ralph put up another finger.  'Space,' he said.

'What-- Preventers are colonising Mars, now?'

'There's a situation on L3.  Requires a pair of eyes.  Be discreet.  Play more than one angle.  Two or three or four angles, maybe.  Keep his head doin' it.'

Trowa pushed the button on his torch, lighting it and turning it off again.  'Option three.'

Ralph nodded.  'You stay where you are, as you.  Powerless and invisible.  Maybe that's what you want, and if that's so, I'll leave you alone.'

'You're not important enough to make that decision.'

'I'm authorised to offer that.'  Ralph sucked at the cigarette at his lips.  He said, 'I remember you, kiddo.  S'why we went for Quatre in the first place.'

One of those flutter-by temptations.  Bashing Ralph's head in with the torch.  It wouldn't do any good, but he thought about it.

'Don't decide now,' Ralph murmured.  He rose with a grunt.  'You've got a little time.  Next time I come, though, I need an answer.'  From above, he ruffled Trowa's hair.  'Sogran,' he said, when Trowa moved his head.  'They've about finished going through his things.  He didn't leave any evidence about Quatre.  Thought you'd like to know that.  Nothin's going to come out of the woodwork and lead to an arrest or anything like that.  Not related to that, anyway.'  He dropped another wrapped packet to the stair at Trowa's side.  A protein flapjack, in Banoffee Blast.  'Eat something,' Ralph told him, climbing the stairs away.  'You're too skinny, the pair of you.'

 

 

**

 

 

The carver sliced thinly and cleanly with his sharp knife.  Right off the big rump roast, the same beast everyone in the cafeteria was eating, as safe as it could get-- he'd even waited til nearly the end of his allotted meal time, to be sure they had no pattern on him.  The beef that came to rest on his plate steamed gently, just a little pink in the middle, a crust of salt and pepper charred on the outer edge.  It nestled against potatoes dauphin and creamed spinach, and the carver obligingly topped it with buttered mushrooms, a generous spoonful.  Trowa nodded awkward thanks, and retreated to his usual table, safe in the back where he could see anyone coming, his back to the wall.  He slid onto the bench and rubbed damp palms on his knees.  Now or never.

He speared the roast with his fork, cut a small piece from the edge, smeared it through the spinach, and put it in his mouth.  He wasn't stupid about it-- it was just food-- but it did taste-- good.  It did taste good.  He forced himself to wait, just to be sure there were no immediate effects, but before he'd quite given himself permission, his knife was moving, cutting another bite.  Another, and another.  He ate steadily til he'd cleared his plate, using a breadroll to mop up the last dribble of butter.

He looked at the empty seat beside him.  He swiped his napkin over his lips and flung it down on his plate.  Time to head out for humvee inventory.

Duo Maxwell was waiting for him, presumably for him, leaning against the brick outside, breath puffing in the cold.  He fell into step with Trowa as Trowa descended the steps.

'Can we be seen together now?' Trowa asked.

'They sent me to you,' Duo replied.  'So I guess we'd better.'

Trowa jabbed a thumb at the crosswalk signal and settled on locked knees.  'New uniform,' he observed.

Duo glanced down at himself.  Away from Trowa.  'Yeah.  Officer corps.'

'Congrats.'  He gave into anxiety, to reality.  If they sent Duo openly, that meant they knew he'd already talked to Duo once.  It had been risky anyway, asking for as much as he had, and Duo had come through, but Trowa knew what that meant.  Favours.  'What are you going to tell me about my options?'

'That you don't have any.'

Figured.  He'd been fairly sure Ralph was lying about something, if not everything.  They wouldn't have sent Ralph to him without expecting him to think that, anyway.  'Okay.'

Duo huffed irritably.  'You're worse than Heero.  You don't have to just accept things, you know.'

'You just told me I didn't have any choices.'

'Said Alliance to the colonists.'

Yeah, Trowa thought.  They'd been right, though.  It had just taken a couple decades for the truth to show itself.

'When I said you didn't have an option,' Duo said softly, as they crossed the street together, 'I meant, one way or another, it's time to make a move.  No more sitting back watching and waiting.  You're in it, now.'

'In what.'

'No-one's ever going to trust us.  So, fine.  Accept that and figure out how to use it.'  Duo put a hand on Trowa's wrist, just a couple of fingertips really, skin on skin.  Trowa didn't shake him off, shove him away, and Duo's mouth twisted in a semblance of that old grin, gone hard.  'Do you know who Leia Barton is?'

He gave himself away with a flicker of a blink.  Duo wasn't watching him close enough to catch it, or at least he made it look like he wasn't, which probably meant he was.  Or someone watching them while Duo distracted him had seen it.  'No,' Trowa said.

'Really?  Because OZ were fairly sure you killed her brother and assumed his identity.'

Trowa had to turn to the left to make it across base to the vehicle lots.  He inclined gently, and Duo followed.  He didn't answer, so Duo followed that step, too, and filled in the silence.

'Leia Barton,' he said.  'She's returning to the colonies.  I want eyes on her.  Our eyes.'

'What does Preventers think she'll do?'

'I don't know what they think.  I know what I think.   _Our_ eyes, Trowa.'

He hadn't heard it said like that in a long time.  Our, meaning what that meant.  And he didn't see how it could mean that.  'We blew that chance years ago,' he said slowly.

'Did we?'  Duo shrugged casually.  He didn't put his hands in his pockets, like Ralph, or play with toys to make himself look harmless.  There was something bright enough to cut lurking in his eyes.  'Yeah,' he agreed.  'Yeah, we did.  But that doesn't mean we quit.  You understand me?  I'm not a kid anymore.  Maybe it just seems like-- maybe it just seems like we could have what we'd want out of this, if we could just figure out what that is, you know?  Because we're not powerless.  We're not invisible.  Not if we don't choose to be.'

Duo left him when they passed one of the bus lines, slouching against the glass shelter to wait for the next stop.  Trowa walked on, not looking back-- intended to, anyway.  He found himself turning back, up the line of juniper bushes where he and Quatre had ambushed Ralph, whatever the hell good that had done them.  The tram was trundling uphill and Duo had moved to the kerb, heel tapping a hard rhythm on the concrete.

'Duo,' Trowa called.  'Nairobi?'

Duo's head turned.  The tram lurched to a stop, ejecting a group of chattering agents who split to flow around Duo, since he didn't move for them.  Trowa hugged the bushes, as they swept by.

'No,' Duo said, and climbed the steps into the vehicle.  'But you already knew that was a lie.'

Yes.  But it was good to have it confirmed.  The grim weight in his chest was just slightly lighter, as he turned away from the departing bus and resumed his walk.  He glanced up.  The sky was cloudless, for once, cold winter black studded with diamond-like stars.  He couldn't see L3, not from here.  But it was out there.

He liked knowing things were out there, even if he couldn't have them with him.  He was used to not having much, but that was something they couldn't take away, if he didn't let them.  He brushed away something damp on his cheek, from his eye.  It was enough.


	29. Zechs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'Her Grace, the Duquesa de Mortima,' Heero murmured.

Zechs nodded graciously to the lady with an overgenerous expanse of bosom blossoming beneath her overlarge peacock fascinator. The lights were flashing, indicating an end to the torture of pretending to know and care about the hundreds of noble guests who had flocked to the opera not for love of the arts, but to be seen in all their finery amongst the pickings of society. Zechs had come for the same reason, of course. Treize professed an actual enjoyment in music, but to Zechs it was all atonal noise set to nonsensical storylines. Still, throwing his support and sponsorship behind the newly re-opened Royal Sanqian Opera Company had earned him good press, demonstrated his commitment to reviving the culture of his kingdom as well as its infrastructure, and anyway he didn't plan on actually listening to the show. He had other designs in mind.

Like letting his guest in the royal box be seen sitting next to him. Treize wasn't the only man who could leverage publicity to get tongues wagging as he wanted them to. Quatre Winner's presence at Prince Milliardo's side would generate a dozen gossip columns, he was sure, and internet traffic of a quieter but far more deadly kind. Within the hour, Zechs was sure, Hibiscus would know their frontman was at his side. What conclusions they would draw about it he couldn't predict, but it would surely confuse them. Was Winner a collaborator or a clever double agent? They wouldn't know.

Zechs didn't know, but that was what a three hour opera was for. Winner wouldn't wiggle out of answering questions, not trapped in the royal box in front of all those curious eyes below.

'I recall you play the violin,' Zechs began, as the lights lowered for the curtain call, and the raucous buzz of chatter died to an anticipatory hush.

Winner was in his dress uniform, appropriate to his presence in Sanq as an official liaison with Preventers, and Zechs hadn't pressured him to wear dress tails, knowing the uniform would have far more impact.  The close cut of Winner's pale hair gave his face a sterner set than eighteen years warranted, and he carried himself like a soldier, sitting stiff-backed in the plush cushions of his reproduction Regency chair, shined shoes planted solidly on the red carpet.  His hands lay on his thighs, curled into loose fists.

'The viola,' Winner replied, after a long pause.

'Did you have orchestral ambitions?' Zechs wondered.  'That could be you down there, sitting first chair in some renowned company.'

'No, your Highness.  I played for pleasure, and because my father thought music studies were useful discipline for a young person.'

Victoria Academy had encouraged its young cadets in some artistic endeavour for much the same logic.  Zechs had consistently relied on Treize or Noin to ensure his good marks in literature, though-- 'I was rather good at dancing,' he said, using his opera glasses to peer down at the stage, where a boy costumed as a shepherd had emerged for the opening solo.  'Treize had pointed out that the precise footwork would bolster my fencing.  I had no time for anything that didn't serve my agenda-- vengeance, for my murdered parents, and regaining my kingdom.  Fencing, I could understand.  Wise of him to manipulate me that way.  Academic probation on account of flunking the waltz would hardly have furthered the course of justice.'

Winner glanced at him from the corners of his eyes.  Zechs thought he was about to speak, but he didn't.  Instead, he applauded politely, briefly, with the rest of the crowd as the pastoral concluded, and the curtain swept back to reveal the rest of the cast and set.  Heero spoke, too quietly for Zechs to hear more than the throaty sound of his voice, into the comm on his shoulder, and returned to parade rest just at the outer edge of Zechs' peripheral vision.

'Perhaps I could make some tickets available to you for the next show,' Zechs said.  He settled back in his throne-like chair with the programme propped on his knee, arranging his face to a mask of serenity.  Never reveal your boredom, that was another of Treize's manipulations.  People were always more inclined to listen to someone they thought was listening to them in turn, and they rarely required proof of actual interest.  'You could invite some of your city friends.'

Winner didn't flick so much as an eyelash at that.  Zechs would have been disappointed if he had.  'I'm sure they'd be delighted, your Highness.'

'Although I may not,' Zechs went on, allowing himself a moment of amusement at the expense of the Duquesa Whoever, to find that the opera's diva was wearing a hat that was not dissimilar, parading about the stage belting out something Latin and interminable.  'I'm a little miffed with you, after all.'

Winner looked at him again, then down at his hands.  'I apologise for whatever I've done, sir.'

'I'm sure you do.  But I was referring to stealing away my portrait artist.  I've had only half his attention since he started hanging on your every word.  He requested an extension of his deadline, did you know.'

'I do apologise, your Highness.  If I've had anything to do with that.'

'Haven't you?'  Zechs let it hang there, the opportunity to confess.  Winner had nerves steelier than that, but Zechs always left him the option.  There'd be no pretending he hadn't given a fair hearing.  'It must be hard to paint when there's objects of greater interest in one's own apartment.  Or does he paint you, I wonder?  I've been told the light in his studio is exquisite.'

The scene on stage rolled indistinguishably into a new plot point.  Zechs clapped, and so did Winner, a beat behind him and halting a beat before.  A muscle jumped in Winner's jaw.  His lips looked bitten, in the dim theatre.

'I could make it a royal order,' Zechs said softly.  'All I want is a little gossip, Winner.  Not too big an ask.'

'I would be happy to share, your Highness, if I had any worth the name.'

'You disappoint me.'  Zechs heaved a sigh, and a few heads turned from nearby boxes.  That irritated him.  Winner often irritated him, and sometimes he thought it was on purpose.  Sometimes, like tonight, he thought it couldn't be-- Winner flinched, just a little, at the sound of his displeasure.  It put him in mind of a kicked dog.  But Winner was a boy, a man, and engaged in something inescapably political whether or not it made him a double agent for Hibiscus, and Zechs was tired of trying to winkle it out one tease at a time.  A saint wouldn't have been as patient as he had been.  A saint would have condemned Winner for the sheer exasperation of trying to converse with him.

'He's a pretty young man,' Zechs murmured.  'You're a pretty young man.  Maybe he paints that.  I believe they call it art, if it's tasteful enough.  The pornography is what happens before he picks up the brush, hm?'

Winner went ever so faintly red, visible in the dim as a dark flush along his collar, high in his cheeks.  'I'm not sleeping with with your portrait artist, your Highness.'

'No, you're always very careful to be back in the Palace by curfew.  It's what happens when you're not asleep that interests me.'

'We're not fucking.'

Finally.  A chink in that pale armour.  It took a little longer every time, but Zechs always found it if he looked hard enough.  'Oh, that I believe,' he said, as the lovers made their first rendezvous on the stage below, warbling at each other in a sugary soprano duet.  'Your artist is entirely too much the romantic.  I'd wager he doesn't fuck... he only makes sweet love, doesn't he?'

The flush in Winner's cheeks was darker and darker.  His blinking was rapid and controlled, like his breathing, but he was a statue otherwise, staring down at the stage without expression.

Heero turned to admit one of the staff at the box door, and carried a tray of champagne in crystal to serve.  Bending over Zechs' shoulder to place the flute at Zechs' right hand, Heero brushed his arm.  'What are you doing?' he asked, so softly Winner might not have heard it over the singing.  Zechs only just did, and so could ignore it with equanimity.  He sipped the champagne as Heero served Winner next.  No commentary exchanged there, nor any subtle touches to serve as warning or encouragement.  They didn't look at each other.  They almost never did, Zechs had noticed, but that was an experiment for another time.  He was finally getting somewhere with this one.

Zechs waited, enjoying his drink and pretending to enjoy the opera, til the last scene of the first act.  The programme was helpful with his timing, and he'd been quiet long enough for Winner to begin to relax again.  Only when the villain swept out on stage with a frill of screeching strings and leering basso did Zechs ask his question, dripping innocence.

'I wonder,' he said delicately, finishing the champagne with a swallow and setting the flute aside.  'Is he a better lay than Barton?  I never spent any time with him, of course, but Barton strikes me as a workingman in sex.  No excitement, no imagination, all routine.  Of course you've been with Barton since you were fifteen, yes?  It must be so fascinating to realise what a buffet of the senses you have at your fingertips now.  Boys who'd worship you with lips or whips as you like.'

'Is that how it was for you, sir, when you signed on with Preventers?'

That was meant to cut.  It did, though perhaps not for the reasons Winner probably imagined.  'Yes,' Zechs said, clapping once for the villain's exit and folding his arms across his chest after.  'More variety than what we had available in the Specials, certainly.  Our colonial imports are so exotic, aren't they.  Treize always did deplore my taste for rough.'

'I believe his Excellency mostly had a taste for you,' Winner said.  'Sir.'

This wasn't going how he wanted it to.  Winner had the words right, riding the line between insult and slander with skill enough, but no emotional investment.  He wouldn't make a real mistake until he fell to the wrong side of that line, and he wouldn't fall without a push.

Zechs pushed.  'At least you didn't call it love.  Treize doesn't know how to love.  But you do, don't you?  You bourgeois types are always in love with the idea of love.  You must have wept with happiness the night you gave yourself to Barton.  Tell me, were you a virgin?  Saving yourself for the right man?'

Winner didn't have an immediate answer to that one.  His throat bobbed in a swallow, and his eyes left the stage, drifting right as he tried to control his reaction.  His hands twined together, just at the fingertips, as if he sought reassurance and knew there was none to be had.

'No,' Winner replied, as the first act ended and the actors marched off the stage in a ringing crescendo.  'I wasn't a virgin.'

'Tsk,' Zechs chided him.  'Now I must know.  Some adolescent fumbling with a school mate?  Perhaps a teacher, someone older, wiser, trusted?  One of those desert men who used to follow you about-- fresh off your first battle, maybe, all aflutter with victory, some quick release in a dirty safehouse somewhere?  I know it wasn't Duo-- he was too busy lusting after Heero here.  Let me guess... you thought you were going to die, of course, that's what martyrs are trained for, so you threw yourself at the first opportunity in desperation and despair.  And it was awful and you regretted it afterward--'

'Zechs,' Heero said, and Zechs glanced back in vexation.  Heero knew better than to interrupt.

'Yes, it was awful.'  Winner said it flatly, and the rest of him had gone flat, too, his hands on his knees, his stare over the audience below, his lips pressed thinly together and pinching out the quiet words.  'But they rather meant it to be.  Vengeance isn't meant to be gentle or tender, is it, your Highness.'

Lunar.  He'd forgot about Lunar.  He'd read the report, about a month after it happened.  There were seven photographs that had survived the battle between Alliance and Treize Faction forces for Lunar Base, for the prize of three Gundam Pilots and the re-engineered Gundams being built in those not-secret-enough facilities.  Seven photographs, two eye-witness accounts, nine minutes of grainy video, and proof in the shape of a crescent-shaped scar.  One for each of them who had endured three days of captivity before the Rebels had retaken the base, and sent them to Earth to recover.

He knew the answer already.  But in the silence, Zechs found himself looking at Heero.  Heero looked back, those dark brows frowning over his pale eyes, mirror-like eyes that only reflected back, never inviting in.  Heero with his soft mouth that never looked hard, no matter how he scowled.  Zechs couldn't imagine that mouth put to the uses he knew it had been.  The thought of it made him want to do murder.

He heard himself say, as if from a great distance, a great buzzy distance of humming rage, 'That wasn't vengeance, Mr Winner.  What happened on Lunar had nothing to do with justice.'

'Didn't it?  They talked a great deal about justice, those men.  That's what you do with criminals.  Rebels.  You punish them.'  Winner applauded the rising curtain, but only as if he just responded to the noise of the rest of the audience doing so.  His facial muscles were slack, his reaction just a bit slow.  'Bringing us to Preventers was justice, too.  Keeping us drugged until we complied was justice.  Dragging Duo to your bed voluntarily or otherwise was justice, and Heero after him--'

Zechs shoved to his feet.  He felt eyes on him, Heero's wary gaze, people in the boxes, even a few eagle-eyed citizens below who were more concerned with what he did than the actors who valiantly struggled on in the face of his displeasure.  Displeasure wasn't the half of it.  He wanted-- he wanted to shout, or stomp off, or throw a punch, but Winner just bloody sat there, having successfully turned the tables and provoked Zechs with nothing more than truth.

Truth.  It was, all of it.  Heero looked him in the eye, and didn't say a thing, to forgive or to forget.

'I want some air,' he said, and Heero stepped through the door first, cleared the stairwell for safety, and let Zechs stride past him without comment.  Winner was still facing the stage when Zechs glanced back, and if he knew he'd just won a battle, he certainly didn't look triumphant.

Zechs waited just long enough for Heero to close the door and follow him into the stairwell.  The gold and black paisley of the wallpaper was an eyesore, but the drape of thick red velvet curtains every few feet did well to muffle sound, and the royal box had its own stairs, a security feature that would now ensure no-one was about to hear him lose his temper.  Kicking the wall produced only a muffled thump and a small scuff from contact with his boot.  He made an abortive move at Heero, next, and Heero didn't twitch, but by the time Zechs made contact he didn't know if he wanted to hit or hurt or pull Heero close and remember what it felt like to have those firm shoulders under his hands, the hard curve of that muscular hip, the dip of his spine in the small of his back.  The soft skin just behind his ear.  Zechs touched it with a fingertip.

Heero said, 'Someone could see, your Highness.  You have to protect your reputation here.'

'There's already rumours.  The queer king and his handsome toy soldiers.'

'Then don't feed the fire,' Heero answered, and Zechs dropped his hand.

Zechs turned away.  The air he'd wanted wasn't flowing very hard from the nearest vent, but he stood under it anyway, wiping a thin film of sweat from his temples, his collar, his upper lip, and folding his kerchief over the damp stain and tucking it back into his pocket.  He ran a hand through his hair, lifting the heavy weight from his hot neck.  Had his father ever stood here, just outside the royal box emblazoned with his family name, faced with weighty problems he couldn't solve with an order, with a wish, with a whim?  Hell, Zechs longed for a problem.  People were harder.  People were impossible, and he'd never been good at people, anyway.  He'd had Treize to do it for him, Noin to clean up after him.  He hadn't always appreciated the clarity of purpose of his younger years, so focussed on the goal to the exclusion of the methods.  A man could long for that clarity, now.  A king.

But he wasn't a king, not yet.  The man who had been Zechs Merquise for far longer than Milliardo Peacecraft wasn't dead and gone, not yet.

And that was the man who allowed himself to say, 'I want full background checks on anyone Winner's ever even looked at in Sanq.  I want a hundred-and-fifty percent review of every background check he's performed on anyone in Sanq.  And I want you to re-vet the artist.  Any possible, even theoretical connection to Hibiscus.  In fact-- in fact, bring him in.  Question him.'

'We can only hold him for twenty-four hours,' Heero pointed out softly.  'And all he has to do is ask for a lawyer.  Bringing him in just tips him off that you're onto him-- if there's anything to be onto.'

'Hold him as long as it takes, then.  I'll sign a writ.'

'For one man who already passed an investigation?'

'Twenty-four hours is ludicrous,' Zechs retorted, tracing the faintly raised line between two sheets of wallpaper.  'We may not be at war any longer, but we aren't quit of the duty to protect ourselves.  He's been in the Palace, and who knows what Winner's telling him.  Anyone with that much access must be absolutely above reproach.'

'Even imaginary?'

He wasn't imagining the cool censure in Heero's tone.  To anyone else it would have sounded as remote and disinterested as always.  Zechs was not everyone else, and he was attuned to even that subtle nuance.  Half the time Heero opened his mouth it was to chide his General, his Prince.  And Zechs had stood for it for foolish reasons, because the lips that spoke it were sweet, because the boy who dared was a prisoner in all but name, because he had won and he could afford to be generous, but now-- but now--

He whirled on Heero so suddenly that the smaller man actually rocked back a step.  Zechs pressed his advantage, driving Heero back into the wall with a hand on his shoulder, and Heero didn't dare push him off, though his hands clenched to fists and his eyes fired bright sapphire.  Zechs sneered into them from millimetres away.

'Do _not_ ,' he hissed, 'do _not_ disobey me.  Do you understand?'

'I understand.'

Zechs shoved him into the wall one more time and let go.  Heero's chest heaved, once, but he was once again stony-faced, controlled, and Zechs felt no different, staring down at him.

'Get me a whiskey tonic,' he said then.  'I'm tired of champagne.  And then I don't want to see your face again til you have something to report about Hibiscus.'

'Yes, sir,' Heero said, and what he did after that Zechs didn't give a damn, and didn't stay to watch.  He resumed his seat in the middle of another lovers' duet, soaring voices attempting to shatter the glass with their song.  Zechs picked up his opera glasses and sat back with his legs crossed, toying with the golden hinge.  Winner was exactly as Zechs had left him, darting a cautious glance now and then his way, set for an explosion.

'Good play,' Zechs said.

Winner blinked once.  'Yes, your Highness,' he replied.


	30. Second Interlude: Zechs and Heero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

It looked like spring outside.  Landlocked Luxembourg would still be in deep winter, but coastal Sanq had skies of pale clear blue and bright sunlight.  The crocuses were already sprouting, green tips poking through the dewy glitter on the lawns.

Zechs stared through the tall arched windows at it, til he heard a footstep.  He whipped his epee vertical, then lunged at the practise dummy.  The epee bent in a perfect arc as Zechs thrust the blunt tip into its torso.

Quatre Winner knocked, and waited, perhaps for a summons, perhaps hoping the summons wouldn't come.  Zechs didn't respond, practising another lunge and twirl, this time spearing the dummy in the back left shoulder.  Just when he thought Winner might have chickened out, the door opened, and Winner stood there framed by it, a dim smudge against the brightly lit studio.  He said nothing to interrupt, and Zechs let him see that he was noticed anyway, before ignoring him in favour of thrashing the dummy.  The dull thud of strikes landing and the soft shuffle of Zechs boots on the mat were the only sound.

'Your Highness,' Winner said finally.  His voice hardly carried.  Was that weakness a show?  A little pantomime for Zechs' benefit?  Zechs performed a butterfly sweep with his sword and used the upswing to take a chunk of the dummy's blank head.  It vibrated with the hit.

'Your Highness,' Winner repeated himself.  He left the doorway for a few tentative steps.  Now there was another sound, the click of keystrokes.  His PDA beeped.  Zechs ground the plastic mouthguard between his jaws.  'Your Highness, I've been told... I've received word that...'

'Yes?'  Zechs removed his face mask, swept his sweaty hair back from his neck where it clung.  'Stop wasting my time on these pregnant pauses, Winner.  If you have something to say, spit it out.'

'Pieke Holgersen has been arrested.'

'Who?'

He knew very well who that was.  Winner knew he knew.  It hung there between them like a scent, and Winner like a fox realising he was in the midst of a hunt.  Good.

'Your Highness' portrait artist,' Winner said, neither slow nor subdued, but brittle nonetheless.  'And two university students and the Marquis de la Candia's valet.'

'I'm sure there are dozens of arrests a day in my kingdom, however perfect most of my citizens aim to be.'

'On charges of espionage.'

'Espionage?' Zechs said coolly.  The dummy shuddered with the impact of Zechs' epee point-first in the centre of its blank face.  'I suppose they haven't got around to adding "treason" to the warrants yet.'

The little electronic device in Winner's clenched hand chimed with another announcement.  Winner glanced automatically, it seemed, though his eyes didn't linger long enough to read whatever message he'd just received.  His adam's apple bobbed in a swallow.

'Or to yours,' Zechs said.  'You know, Treize thought you were harmless.  Broken.  A sad little dupe for Sogran.  Treize never did like to play with little boys who weren't as grown up as he was.  But I've been that little boy, sparring with the bigger ones, stronger ones.  Biding my time.  Do you know what your mistake was, Winner?  You didn't have the grace to compromise.  You couldn't be happy with what you got.  You couldn't be content to let it grow into something more, the way I did.  All this--'  He swept his epee wide to indicate the studio, the palace, Sanq.  The world.  'You could have had a piece of it.  All you had to do was play nice with the big boys.  Winner.  What a tragic misnomer.'

Winner stood taut enough to snap his spine.  His lips were bloodless, nearly blue.  There was the faintest tremble in his hands, but he didn't bow to that blow, not yet.  He whispered, 'They only wanted to know about you.'

'Oh, I'm sure.  My habits, my favourite foods, my schedule.  My security arrangements.'

'What you're like.  Your vision.'

Zechs laughed.  It rippled out in something too soft for an echo, low and ugly.  'We both know you're not that naive.'

'But that is what I told them.  About the kind of kingdom you want to build here.  About the kind of king you want to be.  How Sanq is holy to you.'

Zechs had said that.  He remembered saying it, because he'd said it with every fibre of his being, every minute of his life, every breath since he'd watched his parents gunned down in the courtyard below.  And the way Winner repeated it back to him, oh, that was masterful.  Reverent, as if Winner were capable of feeling that much about anything.

'They care,' Winner said, and his eyes were painfully flat even as his whisper throbbed with emotion.  'They care about the future.  Like you.'

Zechs put out his hand.  Winner stared at it for a long minute, before taking a tentative step toward Zechs.  Zechs beckoned, and slowly, cringeingly, Winner put his PDA in Zechs' palm.  Zechs flipped it about, and tilted the screen against the glare from the windows.  He scrolled the messages, tabbing down through them, dozens, a hundred from this week alone, most of it the usual chatter between various Preventers' systems, daily downloads of data, briefings on a thousand unrelated subjects, but he found what he already knew existed, because Heero had already found the other side of it, messages sent and received from this number, the only electronic communication Winner had access to that wasn't monitored by someone in Sanq, who would know what to look for.  Short, innocuous, personal, and quite certainly coded messages sent to half a dozen individuals with bland mail handles, one university address, the owner of the Galleria where Winner went to meet his co-conspirators.  There was nothing at all in those messages that referenced, however subtly, Hibiscus-- except for the gif image used in every signature.  A peony.

Without a word, Zechs hurled the PDA at the nearest wall.  It shattered, scattering plastic in a shower on the wood floor.  Winner flinched, just a twinge of tightly wound nerves, but he didn't blink, and his breathing was deep, ragged, colour blooming in high in his cheeks.  Gearing up for battle.

So was Zechs.  And he felt fierce triumph, and savage rightness.   _Finally._

He choose an epee from the rack.  A face mask, a quilted jacket.  They landed on the floor at Winner's feet with a thump, a clang, a soft whuff of air.

'I'm sorry. I apologise, your Highness.'

'Like hell you are,' Zechs said.  'Arm yourself.'

Winner tried again, God knew why.  'Sir, I'm very sorry. I can leave.'

'Do as you're told.'

Maybe just a protest for the record.  Maybe just buying time to get himself under control, because he wasn't shaking when he bent to pick up the jacket.  His breathing hadn't evened out, and there was damp at his hairline, gleaming on his throat.  But he shrugged into the jacket and, with just a final hesitation, tugged loose his tie and shoved it in a pocket.  Popped the buttons of his collar and cuffs, and picked up the epee.  He handled it clumsily, wiping his hands repeatedly on the jacket, and he fumbled the mask, banging himself in the nose before he got it strapped correctly.

Zechs prowled a slow circle around him, spiraling closer with each turn. 'I imagined you'd be more adept at this, Winner. You're such an expert on everything else.'

'I apologise again, your Highness. I didn't realise-- how aggressive I was being.'

'Liar. You knew exactly how hard you've been pushing.'  He touched the tip of his foil to Winner's back, just at the edge of his left shoulderblade.  If he thrust hard enough, it would spear the heart.  That would be a quick and painless death.  Zechs preferred Winner alive, and slow and humiliating would be far more enjoyable.  'You wanted to know my limit?' he asked silkily. 'You've found it.'

There was no despair in Winner's flat affect, but it dripped from his slumped shoulders, the drooping tip of his sword as Winner settled into a reluctant en garde.  'Yes, your Highness,' Winner said, and that was the last they spoke for the next ten minutes.

It was a slaughter.  It was a systematic dismantling, as Zechs attacked immediately, mercilessly.  His greater height and weight and strength were all advantages, and Zechs leveraged each ruthlessly, battering Winner into a hopeless defence, manoeuvring him first to the edge of the mat, then across the bare floor, then trapping him against the wall over the shards of his PDA.  There were shades of talent when Winner pulled off a graceful save or two, but for the most part he only just held his own, and made no offencive thrusts.  Zechs gave neither time nor breath for it.  And as Winner began to weaken and his ragged gasps and sweat-soaked face went hollower than ever, Zechs toyed deliberately with him.  A slap to the ribs with the blade.  Tripping him with a quick stab at the ankles.  Feinting left and then following up with a swift cross-cut to the right, one Winner should have seen coming, did see coming, but still fell straight into, unable to catch himself back.  Winner had a little flare of temper then, executing a balestra and lunge with good balance, but Zechs ceded the parry and launched a graze.  He expected it, but watching Winner's flinching overreaction told him it was over even before their blades connected.  It took only minor pressure.  Winner lost his grip, and his epee clattered away.

Zechs planted a hand on Winner's heaving chest and pushed.  Winner sprawled, sliding a foot or two on the waxed boards, and even in the heat of adrenaline and conquest Zechs heard the crack of his skull meeting the floor.  The man lay stunned a moment, and a moment was all it took to calm Zechs.  He removed his mask, giving it a toss to the mat.  Extended his hand in offering.

Winner curled away from him.  He dragged himself onto hands and knees, ripping off his own mask, tearing at the velcro fastners of his jacket.  He staggered up and away, stripping furiously.

'This is my kingdom,' Zechs said.  'Not yours.  _My_ people.  _My_ future.'

'Then _do_ something with it!'

Winner's shout went no-where.  Not under the ringing slap of Zechs' backhand to his face.  Winner rocked on his heels, one arm raising and freezing.  He lifted his head, defiantly staring Zechs down as blood dripped unheeded from his bruised nose.

In the deadly quiet, Zechs spat at him, 'You are the defeated.  You exist here because I have use for you.  Is that understood?'

The colour drained from Winner's face.  He blinked first, and then it was over.  It was quite thoroughly over.

'And contrary to what you believe, I do have a grasp of what my responsibilities are, and the wherewithal to fulfill them.  You don't know everything, Winner.'  He turned his back and strode away.  The rack rattled as he replaced his epee, and he used the sleeve of his quilted coat to wipe his forehead before he tossed it at the laundry basket.  'You are dismissed.'

And, then, the coup de grace.  Winner's voice was scratchy, but he said it, when Zechs would have let him get away without it-- it was all the sweeter undemanded.

Winner said, 'Thank you, Highness.'

The sun was still shining.  Zechs watched a small flock of white gulls flying out over the deep blue sea, headed for the horizon.

And done.

 

 

**

 

 

'Shatterproof?' Heero confirmed, watching the workmen installing safety glass in the windowframe.  'Even against sniper and armour-piercing bullets?'

'This is the same glass we've been using for armoured cars and maximum security prisons,' the contractor replied.  'I'm amazed the Princess didn't have it already.'

So was Heero, but that was very like Relena.  She hadn't had a Heero to make her do it anyway.  Zechs did.  'Tell Madam Sigrid we'll be ready for the blackout curtains in an hour,' Heero murmured to Kalle Mortensen, who nodded.  'His Highness will want this done before he--'

That sentence became a prophecy when the double door of the Royal Suite banged wide, opened from the outside by a vicious slam.  The Prince, facial muscles seized still as ice and normally icy eyes a grey thundercloud, glanced over the chaos of workmen and tools and glass sheets in his Suite, and barked a single order that promised terrible consequences for any hint of disobedience.

'Out,' his Royal Highness said.

The contractor didn't even check for Heero's clearance.  Nor his men, who scrambled to their feet, abandoning their work in a rush to leave.  Heero heard them moving away from the Suite at a good clip, too.  'After them,' Heero told his Corporal Major.  'Hold them in the cafeteria til I send word.'

'Sir,' Mortensen acknowledged that, gazing wide-eyed at the Prince as he stalked by them without so much as a flicker of acknowledgement.  'I'll close off the area to foot traffic.'

'Do.'  Heero followed Zechs to the bath.  He caught the door, just in case, though he was sure he heard Mortensen leave.  A trail of boots, belt, shirt, trousers littered the carpet into the en suite.  Zechs hurled away the chain from his neck that bore his emergency transmitter, and Heero went after that, not in time to catch it bouncing off the wall.  He turned back in time to watch Zechs vomit convulsively into the toilet.  The violence of it, and the sweat visible on Zechs' back and neck, the shaking hands-- it added up to a physical reaction, a stimulant, maybe, something that could be hidden in food or drink-- Heero grabbed a glass from the sink and filled it, wet a cloth, knelt behind Zechs to support him as he heaved.  'Security,' he snapped into his shoulder comm.  'Possible poisoning, we need medical aid in the Prince's quarters--'

'Belay that,' Zechs rasped, shoving weakly at him when Heero tried to wipe his face with the cloth.  'That won't be necessary.'

Heero felt the hammering pulse in Zechs' carotid, checked the eyes for dilation-- the pupils were blown-- trauma, stroke were possible, but the vomitting?  Temperature not abnormally high, and the cool air of the bath was already breaking him out in gooseflesh.  'Did you imbibe?' Heero checked.

Zechs only laughed, a bitter grating chuckle.  'No.'  He swatted Heero's hand away from his neck and the cloth flopped to the tile.  'I don't need a medic.  Call them off.'

'If you've been poisoned--'

'I lost my temper.'

Heero was plenty familiar with that kind of disaster.  He stepped off, and made the countermand to cancel the medic.  But he did call in for ginger fizz and crackers.  It would take the kitchen fifteen minutes to deliver, and by then Zechs should be through the worst of whatever this was.  Kicking the walls, that was the usual, punching something down.  'What happened?' he asked, offering the glass of water again.  Zechs turned his face away.

'Winner pushed,' he rasped.  'I pushed back.  Rather more than necessary.'

Heero blinked.  'Did you hurt him?' he asked cautiously.

A tic jumped in Zechs' jaw.  He gagged, but conquered it.  'I imagine so,' he replied.

Heero rose from his crouch.  Zechs didn't look after him, wouldn't take the damn water, and there wasn't a mark on him, curled over the porcelain bowl of the toilet, but he looked like a man who'd just undergone torture for an hour.  There was wet on his cheeks.

Heero walked out on him.  There was something churning in Heero's gut, something that wasn't quite like the nausea he'd just witnessed, but something equally dark.  He was-- angry.  And he didn't know what to do about it.  Mortensen had shut the doors and the security wire was up.  Heero drew the screen over the half-finished window, and turned a slow circuit of the room.  There was a toolbox on the royal bed.  On the left, the side Zechs always left empty, waiting for the parade of nameless warm bodies he'd been in the habit of parading between the sheets.  Not lately, though, not since coming to Sanq where Zechs had everything he claimed he'd spent a life dreaming of, everything except all the things he'd actually been living as a soldier, a Specials Officer, a General in Treize Khushrenada's rarified circle of trusted advisors.  No freedom here, where the scrutiny was so intense, the respect came tinged with wary worry, where the Pacifists questioned the Prince's unexpected talent for war.  Where the news ran stories wondering if Quatre Winner, scion of a Pacifist family, committed to quiet redemption in Preventers, might not be more what they wanted near the throne of Sanq.

Heero stood there looking at the bed, thinking things like-- why Zechs couldn't keep it in his pants.  Why Quatre would be that stupid.  Why a man capable of so much settled for so little.  Why any of them did.

He stood there looking at the bed, thinking, but Heero wasn't really any good at thinking.  And that was probably the one thing he really did understand about Zechs, because they were exactly the same.  Men built for one purpose, and no hard reset programmed in for when that purpose had ended.  He very well understood that.

But it didn't make him helpless.

Zechs had crawled as far as the shower, wobbling under the spray like a newborn colt on unsteady legs.  He hadn't done more than soak himself unevenly, his hair splattered to the hard muscle of his back.  Heero looked, made himself look, _see_ , that exposed smooth skin, the curve of buttock and spine, the fine gold hair on sculpted legs and solid thighs and the cock that hung heavy between them.  Zechs was a man in every sense, and Heero let himself, made himself, see that, feel that.  Zechs shut off the water and stepped out from behind the glass, and when he looked up it was to see Heero unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his shirt.

It registered with plain shock.  Zechs seized into stillness, down to breath and heartbeat even.  A moment of crystalline frozen lust, and something more tormented than that.

Heero's shirt parted beneath his hands.  He poppd the button of his fly, and drew down the zip.

Zechs swallowed as if it hurt his throat to do so.  His voice emerged in a hoarse croak.  'What are you doing?'

'My job,' Heero said.  It took eleven steps to cross the wide graceful bath, to pass the line between carpet and tile, to step on the first wet drips from the shower.  It took eleven inches to reach for the towel indifferently draped at Zechs' waist.  Nothing at all to tug it loose, to let it fall.

Zechs was diamond-hard at the instant of his touch, and his shoulders nearly quivered with the effort of his self-restraint.  'Don't be a martyr.'

The pretty blown-glass bottles of cremes, cologne, soaps arrayed about the sink were half-unfamiliar to him; the time when he'd controlled everything in Zechs' toiletry had passed.  The shaving kit lay on a silver dish, the lather cup and brush still damp from the morning's use.  The razor.  Heero skimmed it with a fingertip, but only on the route to a bottle of lotion.  He said, 'I don't go anywhere I don't want to.'

'Are all of you liars?'

'You don't get to be angry right now,' Heero told him, and turned to kiss him quiet.

Zechs came at him like an atom bomb.  Heero's back slammed into the wall hard enough to jar his bones, but there was no time to worry at it.  Zechs devoured his mouth, the heels of his hands rough as they skimmed Heero's torso, plunged into his trousers.  Heero helped him along, pushing back against Zechs' thrusting hips to gain a bit of clearance from the wall.  The trousers went, falling to his ankles.  The elastic band of his undershorts pulled tight at his waist, fingernails scraped grooves in his flesh, but Zechs didn't release him long enough to soothe.  The lotion was a cold slime smearing his buttock and Zechs hauled him off-balance, pulling Heero's leg over his hip, stabbing fingers breaching him-- not fingers.  Zechs was in him, just in him, hard, just holding still inside of him, and it hurt, as it had sometimes hurt before, but Heero swallowed the momentary pain with a lifetime of practise and let the whole of it happen.  The look on Zechs' face was blurred by how close they hovered, crushed together as if even a molecule was too much distance, but it was greater agony than anything Heero felt for himself.

'Yes,' Heero said.

Zechs released a shaking breath.  He moved, only a very little.  Small pushes and retreats, only a hint of friction.  Heero strained on the one ankle planted tenuously on the tile, and Zechs moved without question, perhaps without thinking, pressing his weight into the wall, supporting him with an arm under his ribcage, under the leg he still hoisted up.  His wet hair clung to Heero's chin as he pressed their cheeks together.  Belatedly, fumbling with unaccustomed clumsiness, he took Heero's cock in hand and stroked it.

'Yes,' Heero said again.  He shifted one hand, to squeeze Zechs' tautly corded neck.  'Let it go.'

'No.'  Mindless.  Strangled.  Weeping, maybe.

'Let it go.'  Heero followed the straining muscle to a nerve bundle in Zechs' bunched shoulder.  He applied his teeth, hard enough to break the skin.

Zechs loosed a wild cry.  His entire body clenched, one last desperate contraction of muscles that had to be screaming in protest, and he was in as deep as he could go in their awkward stance, and Heero felt a pulse of damp gliding him in the final thrust.  Zechs' hand on Heero's cock was uncomfortably tight, but Heero weathered it, waited it out, paying no mind to anything but the slowing of that frantic heartbeat mashed into his chest.

How long it was before he judged it safe, he wasn't sure.  A minute, three.  But his slightest shift broke the spell, as he'd known it would.  Zechs came back to life, slipping out of him at last, slipping away.  But only to go to his knees, only to splay a big hand on Heero's stomach and the other curling back around Heero's thigh in exactly the same place, this time to hold himself in place as he closed his mouth around Heero's cock.  Practised, automatic, not enthusiastic, until he sighed around Heero, and began to suckle.  Heero judged the danger past, then.  Zechs wasn't gentle, precisely, but different, definably different, seeking to give pleasure, now, tongue swirling, lips tender.  Heero allowed himself the presence of mind to feel it, even to enjoy it.  He reached up, blindly finding purchase on the wall behind him, a towel rack maybe, something to hold that wasn't Zechs.  The head bobbing determinedly at his groin.  Yes, he could let himself have this, Zechs wanted him to have this, needed him to take this.  He knew this mood, too.  It wasn't an apology-- but it was remorse, of a kind, and Heero could accept it for what it was.

Enjoy it.  It had been just as long for him as it had been for Zechs, after all.  He wouldn't make that mistake again.  If they had to work harder to hide it, he would do it.  Zechs was too combustible.  He'd left it too long, and Zechs had gone seeking the only other outlet he had.  Heero would fix that.

Would fix that.  He plucked at the hand at his hip.  Guided it.  Zechs fondled Heero's ballsac, for a moment, and Heero twitched and breathed and nodded, and felt Zechs straightening on his knees, gathering strength.  The fingers cupping him trailed a path more intimate than that, along the crease of his buttocks, and prodded tender flesh.  He was beyond the pain, and it was only invasion until Zechs found the place that made him hot and squirmy, the spot that made sparks behind his eyelids.  Heero jerked on his feet, fisting his own shirt to stop himself grabbing at Zechs' hair.  Zechs swallowed him deeply to match the curve of his fingers in Heero's ass, and Heero let it carry him to a dizzying height and push him off a cliff.  The soft noise that escaped him went willingly, and Zechs turned up eyes to him that blazed.

They sat together quietly afterward, moving no farther than the cabinets under the sink with the discarded towel beneath them as cushion.  Zechs held him within the circle of both arms, unusual enough after sex that Heero thought better twice of saying anything to interrupt it.  Zechs was warm against his back, and perhaps content.  Perhaps.  Heero played with the ends of a lock of pale gold hair, brushing them between his fingertips.

Zechs broke the silence, speaking just above a whisper into Heero's temple.  'You'll catch a chill,' he murmured, and snagged one of the buttons of Heero's shirt.  Heero didn't answer that, since it wasn't a question.  He let his head rest back against the shoulder behind him, the one he'd bit.  After a moment, Zechs said, 'Tomorrow I'll apologise.'

'Just don't do it again.'

'I didn't plan to-- go that far.'

'You never do.'

'I haven't touched him before this.'

Heero turned on him with a face gone numb with shock.  'Duo wasn't enough for you?'  He shook off the hands that tried to restrain him and shoved to his feet.  'I thought even you--'

'It's not like that!'

The pleading tone didn't register as much as the hand outstreched for him.  Zechs had argued with him plenty of times, but never reached for him, not like that.  Instinctive and humble, and afraid.  Heero grabbed his trousers from the floor, fiddling with the belt still strung through the loops.  He couldn't quite look Zechs in the face, but he didn't leave, either.

Zechs took the tiny sliver of a chance Heero was offering.  'I just-- I thought he was lying.  I thought he was conspiring with-- I don't know.  He's doing something, you know he is.  But I wanted the confession.  I wanted him to admit it to my face.  I made him fence.  I lost control of myself.  I'm not proud of it.  It won't happen again.'

'You made him fence.'  That didn't sound so bad.

'I knew I could destroy him and I did so.'

'He's half your size.'  Decided he was cross.  There were lavender-scented wipes on the sink.  Heero scraped himself clean and discarded the little square.  He didn't look at Zechs as he dressed himself.

'His mouth gets him into trouble.  I'm not excusing myself.'

Heero didn't point out he was doing exactly that.  'Just don't do it again.'

'I've already said I won't.'

'I don't believe you yet.'

Zechs didn't argue him down.  Didn't order him to shut up.  Stared at him, Heero confirmed with a glance from beneath his eyelashes.  Stared at him as if he were dazed, as if he were dead tired, exhausted within an inch of his life.

'As you wish,' Zechs said, in a hollow voice that could have meant anything.  And, then, 'Your job?'

'What about my job.'

'You're doing your job.  Being here.'

'Yes.'

There was a tentative knock at the outer door.  Heero had been waiting for it-- five minutes longer than he'd thought he'd have to, but Mortensen might have been giving him extra time to weather the storm.  'That's the kitchens,' Heero said.  'Try to keep it down and rest.  We'll finish the windows tonight.'

'Heero.'

It wasn't an order, so Heero didn't have to find out whether he would have obeyed or not.  And it wasn't a question, so he didn't answer it as he left.

 

 

**

 

 

Even with the help of the security cameras, it took a long time to find Quatre.  There was no camera in the studio where Zechs exercised, but Heero found the view of them going in, about an hour apart, and leaving, also separated by nearly an hour.  Zechs had gone straight to his suite.  Quatre had emerged and stood in the corridor for a time, as if undecided about his direction.  Then he had walked, calm, even a little slow, to one of the service lifts, and used his Preventers badge to take the lift to the offices.  He went to his desk, and sat there for a time, uninterrupted with most people out at luncheon or busy with other mid-day chores.  He did nothing, wrote nothing down, didn't do any work on his desktop computer, but then abruptly he as on his feet again, and this time he walked with purpose.  He went back to the lifts, rode to the fifth floor, one of the public levels, and walked from the lift to a corner.  And then he vanished.

Not vanished.  But started evasive manoeuvres, so far as Heero could determine.  Hugging the walls, avoiding large spaces with multiple camera coverage, keeping with crowds.  Quatre was more than capable and had been in Sanq long enough to have learnt every avenue of escape, just as Heero had done when he'd first come here, habit as engrained as breathing.  But so far as Heero could tell, he hadn't escaped.  He hadn't taken a shuttle, his keycard had never been used on any of the exits, nor indeed any security-required door, but that only meant he'd piggy-backed some careless person through a checkpoint or relied on the courtesy of others to get him through.  It was hardly complicated.  But reasoning out where he would want to be was, because Heero didn't know enough about him to make guesses, and never had.  Quatre was not a predictable man.  Not when pushed.

Or maybe he was, if Heero expanded his definition of predictable.

The sun was setting when Heero climbed a final stairwell barred with an alarm and a chain, or had been before it had become a quiet security violation.  A brick propped open the door to the roof, and burnt cigarette butts littered the ground just beyond the door.  A dented empty juice can and an old rain-yellowed newspaper joined the grit of a well-neglected hide-away, but there wasn't room for much more.  A satellite dish had been erected last year, Heero knew from reading reports left by Relena's people, and took up a good two-thirds of the highest point of the palace grounds.  There was a short brick wall, perhaps waist-height, red brick gone grey with lichen, and there was nothing else between that wall and the horizon, a clear view of the ocean all the way to Greenland.  The sun was a fiery orange ball hanging low over the water, and framed perfectly in its centre was Quatre Winner.

Heero said, 'What do you think Trowa will do when he hears you've died?'

Quatre didn't start, didn't flinch.  Didn't get down from the wall.  'Live,' he replied, and Heero ventured nearer a step, two.  'He'll live.  It will be better for him without me.'

'It won't.'

'I would have dragged him down with me.  This is better for everyone.'

'What about me?'  Heero made it to the wall.  Quatre's face was wind-reddened, his hands limp at his sides.  Heero boosted himself up the wall and stood on the edge beside Quatre.  There was no resistance when he took Quatre's hand in his.  'I would be alone here.'

Quatre had no ready counter for that.  His hands were dry.  His face was wet.  He held each inhale just a moment, as if he were savouring the air one last time.  'I don't want... I don't want for you to...'

'I don't want for you to die, either.'

Quatre swallowed hard.  'It's too much.  I don't know how to not feel this much.'

'You don't have to do it alone.'  It was in the wrong pocket, and he didn't want to risk letting go of Quatre's hand.  He faced the castle, and switched his grip only at the last moment.  Quatre broke his stare to glance at him, and his fingers curled at last, a compulsive squeeze.  Heero returned it, and lifted Quatre's hand.  He put the bottle of pills in it.

'They said you're not taking your prescription.'

'There's nothing between feeling dead and wanting to be.'

'There's this,' Heero said, shaking their hands so the pills rattled just a little.  'And there's me.  And there's Trowa and Duo.  You have to want to, for all of us.'

Quatre closed his eyes.  Tears of frustration spilled over his cheeks, two fat drips.  'I'm not as strong as you.'

'That's why you ask for help.'  Before, he wanted to say, but didn't, because there was no finishing the sentence after that, no imagining the end.  'I'm here now.  Ask me.'

A fine tremble shook Quatre's jaw.  He clenched his teeth hard against it.  'Tell me it will be worth it.'

'It will be worth it.  Quatre.  Look at me.  Believe me.'

Quatre wasn't so far gone that he ignored the pleading in that.  He did look, and they stood there, together on the ledge, staring into each other's eyes, the wind stinging them and the sun fading against the oncoming night and their hands going sticky from the force of their grip, but Heero put everything into his eyes that he had to give.

'Believe me,' he whispered.  'I know.'

'How?'  Quatre leapt on that with a little gasp, on the cusp of drowning.  'How do you know?'

Heero wasn't good enough at lies to answer that the way Quatre possibly wanted.  Because you deserve it, that's what Duo would have said, and believed, but Duo had a way of making things happen, and his magic hadn't spread this far yet.  Because you got through to him, that was what Quatre deserved to hear, but Heero couldn't promise that, couldn't promise it would last.  Because every day you're still breathing is worth it, that was Trowa's answer, the answer Heero had given him, once, when he'd looked another friend in the eye and tried to come up with a reason in the face of overwhelming evil and unending trials.  Worse-- worse, for Quatre, the sheer indifference of the universe, justice that was just an idea, faith that shrivelled in the face of reality.  There was never a reason big enough for that.

Heero took a breath from the soles of his feet, from the solid brick beneath him, inhaling the salty scent of the sea and the clean thin air of the stars appearing like faint winking bulbs in the darkening sky.  He looked Quatre in the eye, and he said, 'You know Epyon showed me things.'

Quatre's bitten lips fell apart, forming a question he never spoke.  His eyes were bright, overbright, a liquid blue like the sea on their right, as deep.  His hand on Heero's seized unbearably tight, knuckles throbbing in protest, but Heero bore it.

 

 

**

 

 

It was nearly time.  Zechs checked the clock again, and forced himself to sit still, not squirm in his seat like an impatient child.  He did permit himself a sip of his coffee, to ease the parched scratch of his throat.  Then he flattened his hands to the arms of his chair, and waited out the minutes grimly.

Winner was prompt for his appointment.  Zechs called for him to come almost as soon as the first knock landed.  There was a short pause, and then the door opened.

Zechs didn't choke himself on a breath, but only because his stomach had seized so tight he couldn't have managed one.  It wasn't the worst he'd anticipated, but seeing it in person was hard.  Winner's eye had a faint purplish sheen to it, spread over the bridge of his nose, blacked from the bruise of Zechs' slap.  But Winner didn't flinch from him, didn't turn away, didn't glare at him or accuse him or even look particularly distraught.  He waited to be invited to sit, and Zechs flung out a hand and gestured him at one of the chairs arranged before his desk.

'Your dry cleaning, Highness,' Winner said, and gently laid a plastic bag of clothes over the seat beside his.

Another shame.  Zechs had so many he'd begun to forget them, those little inflicted hurts designed to humiliate.  He'd have to start drawing up a list.

And start atoning.  He didn't let the silence accumulate.  He said, 'I owe you an apology.'

Winner didn't cooperate, however.  He blinked, once, and replied, 'No, sir. I owe you one.  I was well out of order.'

'I shouldn't have brutalised you, regardless.'

Winner arched a pale brow.  'Brutalise, sir?  Was I in the room for that?'

Zechs gestured again, flinging a hand at Winner's face.  Winner's face was the least of it.  'Didn't I?'

Winner's face was a study in guilelessness, blank of all expression and condemnation.  'I suppose I'd be the first to know, sir.'

Zechs clamped down his temper.  His temper had no place here.  'In any case.  I regret my actions yesterday.  They will not be repeated.'

'You won't need to, Highness.  You were very clear.  In future, you have my assurance I will behave properly.'

'Do either of us have any idea what that means?'  Then, before Winner could blink at him so daringly, Zechs wrested control of himself again.  'Nevermind.'

'Yes, sir.'

This wasn't going how he'd expected.  Wanted.  He clutched at the arms of his chair.  Remembered what he'd planned as the next step, and grabbed at the drawer of his desk.  It screeched, wood dragging on wood, as he yanked it open.  The small wrapped box looked ridiculous, he thought, and he tore off the bow just before he removed it into view.  Winner took it at his urging, looking rather like he expected it to hold a live grenade.

'Sir?'

'You needn't open it here, if you don't wish to.  I know you have duties.'

Winner looked at it in his lap.  He moved on the click of a heartbeat, removing the lid and breathing and wincing all at once, and then twitching out a small smile that heartened Zechs.  Yes, it had been a smile, even if a fleeting one.

'I bought the extended warrantee,' Zechs ventured.  'Blasted things break so easily.'

'I think it's rather that walls are so solid, your Highness.'

'Possibly.'

Winner removed the new PDA from the box, depressed the 'on' button.  It was pre-loaded, of course, his accounts updated, and it wouldn't take more than a glance to know his clearances were all in tact and that it was no more, if not any less, monitored than before, but what thoughts went on behind that passive face Zechs was at a loss to guess.  Winner tagged through what Zechs presumed was his daily electronic mail, but lowered the PDA a moment later.  He sighed very softly, and said, 'Your Highness, I think you should send me away.'

Well, he had not expected that.  Or at least not so immediately.  'Why?'

'We would seem to be at an impasse.  We clearly don't-- mesh.'

'It's early days.  You're needed here.'

'No, sir, respectfully.  You could hire anyone off the street to do what I do here.  I may not be useful anywhere, but I'm certainly not here.'

'You're quitting?' Zechs demanded sharply.

'I don't get to quit.  I'm the defeated.'

There it was, the jab he'd thought was coming.  It hurt more than he expected.  'Ah,' he said, and reached for his coffee again to wet a dry throat.

'Please don't misunderstand.'  Winner didn't meet his eyes.  He looked at the display shelf, as he always seemed to in Zechs' office, but today his gaze didn't linger on the mask.  It swept onward, to the window.  To the sea view.  'I don't think I've ever been anything but the defeated, sir.  As a colonial.  As the son of my father.  As me, maybe.  I've tried time and again to turn that to a strength... I...'

'Then why are you running?'

'Not running.  Sire, you need someone who can meet you halfway.  I can't.'

'You will meet me halfway,' Zechs retorted, and the pinched lines beside Winner's mouth slackened.  'You're needed here.  If you're feeling un-- unsatisfied with your work, I'm--'  He floundered there.  He had never had to say words like these before, and didn't know how to.  'I'm willing to hear your complaints.'

'My complaints.'  Winner dragged a finger down the screen of his PDA.  His eyes fell closed.  'You arrested the painter.'

'That's more than halfway.'  Zechs put up a cautioning finger, but Winner wasn't watching for it.  'He is guilty of something.  I'm not inclined to ignore that.'

'He's guilty of being young.  He's guilty of being a sheltered idealist.  He's innocent.'  A moment's hesitation, there on the brink.  'He's not Hibiscus.'

He wasn't ready for this confrontation.  Or, rather, he was overready, and cursed himself now for his determination that second chances were warranted.  'You recruited him, he recruited you.  I don't know, but it's immaterial.  Hibiscus followed you to Sanq.'

'I think it's entirely possible they were already here.  But that boy isn't part of it.  None of those children could be.'  Winner faced him, then, really looked at him, for maybe the first time since he'd arrived.  No artiface, no walls.  'They like art,' he said.  'They read plays.  Philosophy.  They quote Emmanuel Kant and Karl Marx.  They were too young to fight in the war and not a single one of them has ever been in a room with a gun.  Hibiscus is a-- a romance, to them.  Knights in armour of Gundamium who duel with chivalry.  They know the world their parents lived and died in was sordid and wounded and wrong.  They want their own future to be-- innocent.  To be fair.  To be _good_.  But they can't get there on their own.  They need someone to follow.'

'You.'

'You, your Highness.'  Winner clicked something on his PDA.  He turned it about, held across the desk.  Despite himself, Zechs leant in to look.

'The hibiscus symbol,' he dismissed it.  'It's always been part of your not-terribly-secret communiques--'

'The peony,' Winner said.

Zechs felt the weight in that, even if he didn't yet understand.  'The peony.'

'I thought it was an appropriate symbol.  Personal.  Recognisable.  Meaningful.  It's associated with prosperity, good fortune.  Beautiful.  Like the future you'll build here.'

'You think I'm full of shit,' Zechs said.

'I think you don't have to be,' Winner responded.  'I think you could be worthy.'  Something very nearly a smile turned his lips up.  'I think we haven't got a lot to choose from.  So I chose you.'

Zechs wondered at him.  'Why?' he asked, when he could muster the voice for it.

'I don't know,' Winner said.  'To hold off the darkness a little longer, maybe.'

It was too much to think about.  It was too much to handle, really, too many thoughts in a whirlwind-like procession, and, forefront in his mind, in his gut, the knowledge that Treize would and wouldn't do it this way.  Had done it this way, was doing it now with Duo, had done it before with his Specials officers, with Zechs himself.  But not even Treize had ever tried to turn an entire Resistance on its head by re-appropriating its conquerer and turning him into a promise.

Whether Winner was mad or inspired, Zechs didn't know, but he sat there waiting for Zechs to say something, as if he'd only asked about the weather and was awaiting confirmation it would make for a warm spring.

Zechs laughed.  And surprised himself doing it, and laughed all the harder.  He sat back with his hand at his mouth, and Winner just waited him out.

'Arrange it,' Zechs said, and took the plunge-- for now.  For now.  God, only for now.  'Whatever it is you're up to.  All right.'

Winner inclined his head with a pretty show of gratitude.  'I will.  Thank you, your Highness.'

The echo of yesterday's thanks still hovered at his shoulder.  Zechs shook his head.  God.

'I have conditions of my own,' he said.  'When we are in private, you will use my given name.'

He hadn't specified which name, Zechs or Milliardo.  He was curious which Winner would choose, given his ambitions.  For the moment, Winner only nodded his acceptance.

'I have a ribbon-cutting at the new children's centre this afternoon.  You'll attend with me.  The driver will be waiting at two.'

Winner lifted the PDA with an ironic little hunch of the shoulder, and added it to his calendar.  'Anything else, sir?'

'No.'  God.  'No, for now.'

Winner rose to bow, and Zechs swivelled his chair to the window.  He felt as if he went on spinning, anchoring himself only by the deathgrip he maintained on his chair.

From behind him, Winner said, 'It took that scene yesterday for me to get into your head, didn't it.'

Zechs shook his head.  'I don't know.  Possibly.'

Perhaps Winner considered that.  Perhaps it was a fatal slip, and Zechs would remember this day when Winner laid him low.  Oddly, he didn't think so, but maybe he was mad, too.

'I'm in there now,' Winner said.  'I will use that.  Milliardo.'

'I expected nothing less.  Quatre.'

Zechs laughed at the seat beyond his window, and closed his eyes.

 


	31. Duo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

It was weird to think it had been--

It was weird, Duo thought, just-- weird.  It was weird.  It had been almost four years.  Four years since he'd smelled this particular smell.  It was the smell that was really-- it was the smell, and maybe the feel of the leather grips on the controls, soft and hard all at once, and his palms were sweating, he was damp under the armpits, hot under the heft of his braid against his neck.  He thought he was shaking, he looked down and expected his hands to be shaking, but they were steady.  Sure.  Ready.

Duo sucked in a deep, deep breath, and let it out slow.

He fired, and watched the blaster cannon's beam destroy the targets like a hot knife through butter.

 

 

**

 

 

Khushrenada smiled beneficently at the company gathered about the large conference table, sipped and set aside his tea, and said, 'Well, then, I think we should hold a little demonstration, don't you?'

That was greeted with dead silence.  Duo, standing in the back with extra copies of the dossier, contained a reluctant smirk.  One, two, three, he counted.

At four, the chief engineer sucked in a big breath and plastered on Eager Helpfulness like it was cologne.  'Of course, Field Marshal,' he said, 'of course, a demonstration.  We would be thrilled to demonstrate our sims--'

Khushrenada dismissed that politely.  'Forgive me, Mr Chakraborty, but I meant a live demonstration.'

Everyone else had gone into the stoic-faced silence that was generally preferred when masking panic.  The unlucky engineer plowed on, alone in a crowded room.  'The simulations do use live pilots, Field Marshal.'

'The suit, Chief.  I would like to see a demonstration, live, with the suit itself.'

'We haven't-- our test pilots haven't--'  Chakraborty wiped a sheen of perspiration from his upper lip.  'In all candour, Field Marshal, I don't want a sub-par performance to mar your expectations for the suit itself.'

'I appreciate that sentiment,' Khushrenada replied gravely, with that level look and hint of warmth that so many had found so persuasive.  It was his best mask, Duo thought idly, unsticking and repositioning a glue-backed note on the top dossier.  It made people feel like he was totally focussed on them, in sympathy with them, listening just to them.  It had fooled people a lot less in the know than an engineer in a remote secret facility.

The last time they'd been here, a Resistance-inspired assassination attempt had splattered some blood in the nearby forest, and inspired-- required-- a thorough scrubbing of personnel.  There was a whole new batch of faces around the table, all of whom had gone through extra screening just to sit there silently with clenched fists.  Chakraborty had survived the scything of staff based on irreplaceable knowledge and a total lack of personal life; he lived and breathed mobile suits, and the way he blinked owlishly at Khushrenada reminded Duo of Heero at his most innocent robot-meets-human-emotion-for-the-first-time.  It was sort of adorable and irritating at the same time.

Khushrenada gave Chakraborty a full five seconds of direct eye contact, and then sat back with a small wave of his hand.  'As it happens,' Khushrenada said, 'we have access to one of the best pilots of the age.  By some calculations he has logged more hours than our own La Lupe, Colonel Noin.'

Oh.  Oh, shit.  No.  Duo looked over his shoulder just in case, but there was no-one else in the room who even vaguely qualified as a pilot, much less a pilot fitting that inspirational introduction.

'May I speak to you?'

The words just slipped out.  Duo realised they had come from him after he'd already clicked his teeth and settled into grinding his jaws.

'Sir,' he added grudgingly.

Khushrenada made a show of checking his pocketwatch.  Duo scowled.  He knew for a fact Khushrenada had never carried a fucking pocketwatch before.  He'd brought props for this.  Props.  And apparently Duo was that predictable, giving him exactly the opening he expected.

'We'll be pushing our schedule as is, Mr Maxwell,' the Field Marshal said, and rose.  Everyone else scrambled up.  'Perhaps you might take the time to gather a flight suit and gear, however.  Safety first.'

'Sir.'  Duo shoved an engineer out of his way to catch up with Khushrenada as he headed at a jaunty clip down the corridor, leaving the Top Secret conference room behind.  Duo had to strike an awkward skip-jog to keep up with those long legs, but at least their morning runs had conditioned him to walk and seethe at the same time.  'Sir, this is a bad idea.'

'It's impolitic to question my judgment in public, Mr Maxwell.'  Khushrenada clicked the pocketwatch shut in Duo's direction.  'You should be reviewing the specs.'

One more hint this wasn't an impulse move.  Khushrenada had handed him the dossier on the flight to the Czech Republic with the advice to 'brush up'.  Duo had assumed that was a dig about their last visit, when Duo had got within eyesight of the Gundams and then spent the rest of his day puking over killing someone in the woods.  He had the dark thought he might be up-chucking today, too, if Khushrenada put him inside a machine Duo had last piloted when he'd been cheerfully attempting to wipe the planet clean of Romafeller and OZ.  'This is a bad idea,' Duo tried again, 'for-- reasons-- violent reasons--'

'Humour me, Mr Maxwell.'

'It doesn't exactly end well when I do that, usually.'

That got a laugh.  Duo stared.  It was the first sign of amusement, of anything even approaching a sincerely good mood since Une had kicked it.  It made Duo want to kick him in the nuts and run for it.  His palms were practically itching, and his gut was turning over with butterflies--

Oh.  Not butterflies.  Well, yes butterflies.  Not for the ballbusting urge.  He recognised this incredibly inconvenient-- shit.  God.  He dropped the dossier to hide his crotch.

'If I say "no", is it in any way relevant?' he tried, last ditch effort.

'Relevant, yes.'  Khushrenada turned a corner and blew through the unlocked theatre doors, descending the steps regally through the darkened rows to take a large leather chair overlooking the factory floor on the other side of the glass.  Blue eyes flicked over Duo, landing for approximately three-fourths of a second on Duo's lap and the folder painfully positioned in front of it before rising back to Duo's face.  'But mind-changing, no.'

'Have you even considered what the news will read tomorrow?  You put a Gundam Pilot in a re-fab mobile suit being secretly constructed at a facility owned by the government as part of a plan to forcibly pacify the two percent of the population engaged in active resistance--'

'Secret facility,' Khushrenada said mildly.  He removed his glasses from his pocket and donned them, leaning forward to peer across the factory floor.  There were four Gundams being constructed, and they rose majestic above the metal scrap of cranes, catwalks, sparking electricals.  'Generally quite functional in keeping its contents out of the news feed.'

'Sir--'

'Duo.'

It was the first time he'd ever heard his given name out of the man.  He thought.  His brain kind of froze.

'Just fly well,' Khushrenada said.  'And don't break the suit.  That's really all that's required.'

The rest of the crowd was filtering in.  Hanging back respectfully, or maybe hoping that Duo would win the argument.  He wasn't going to.  It wasn't an argument.  It was still a monumentally bad idea, but-- he looked out at the Gundams out there, tall and beautiful, and admitted to one crucial factor.  He wanted in there like whoa.

'Mr Maxwell.'

Back to the safely non-intimate version of his name.  Except for the shadow of that slip, it had to be a slip, right, hanging there in the silence on either side of those three syllables.

'Fine,' Duo blurted.  'Disable the weapon systems.'

'You'll be all right.'

Yeah.  He probably wouldn't have any strong impulses to rampage through the charred bodies of everyone wearing a uniform.  Duo heaved his shoulders back with a deep breath.  'Fine.'

 

 

** 

 

 

Treize waited him out a week, which was shorter than Duo had thought he'd get.  Back in Brussels it was a celebration, a proper send off.

'Death by prostitute,' Treize said again, tipping his vodka to Duo before shooting it back.  'This is ecstasy.  This is true happiness.  To Wolfgang Daecher-- exactly the end you deserve.  Yes, pour me another.  Have the kitchen send up caviar.  Such a decadent end merits an appropriate toast.'

Duo obediently put in the order.  He hung up the phone, watching with what he decided was amusement as Treize propped his feet up on the desk and hummed to himself.  If nothing else expansive self-congratuation made a pleasant change from the black moods that had been the norm all spring.  'So what'd this guy do to you?' he wondered aloud, bringing the bottle from the bar and topping off the little glass in Treize's hand.  'Must've been something awful.'

'Mm,' was the reply he got, but then abruptly Treize turned a sly smile on him.  'I'll tell you,' he said, raising the glass to his lips for a smaller, more considered sip.  'If you make me a bargain.'

'A bargain?'

'Yes.  A fair barter.  I'll tell you if you tell me, Mr Maxwell.'

'Tell you what?'

'Oh, stop keeping me in suspense.  Why you flew my Gundam.'

Somehow Duo was surprised.  It had gone well-- obviously-- Khushrenada didn't make bad gambles without counting his cards first.  And it had been in the news.  Leaked, and by Duo, and for that matter written by Duo based on a breezy order from Khushrenada, and they were currently enjoying the hits rolling in on various darknet forums used by the Resistance.  No-one knew what to make of a former Gundam Pilot piloting a Gundam under Preventers.  Consequently both sides were claiming it as a victory for their principles.

He poured a shot for both of them, ice-cold and to the brim.  Khushrenada knocked it back, waved on another, and waved for Duo to sit, too.  Duo eased onto a chair.  The last time they'd sat for conversation it had been fairly disastrous.  Khushrenada drinking had all kinds of bad idea written all over it, and Duo never liked sequels, especially starring bad behaviour and trauma.  But if the good mood lasted, why not.  He'd get some water in their glasses before the next round, though.

A finger tapped his wrist.  Right.  'Because you meant me to,' Duo answered belatedly.  He took the barest taste of his vodka.  It left a faint tinge of lemon on his lips.

'Pish.  You do nothing at all because I wish it.'

'I didn't say I did it because you wished me to.'

'Do I need more vodka to figure this out?'  The Field Marshal poured for himself, this time.  Duo's glass was still full, so Khushrenada only pushed the bottle toward Duo with a meaningful look.

'You asked me specifically.  I have a good idea what your reasons were.'  Duo grimaced, and tipped the shot down his throat.  'You didn't wish me to.  You were testing me.'

That earned him a toast.  'You were magnificent, of course.  I never get to gloat like that in front of those old rascals who put me away in Luxembourg.  It's good for them to sweat once in a while.'

That was new.  Duo was fairly sure Khushrenada had made no public references to his war-time exile, like, ever.  Acknowledging it was practically inviting a repeat.  Then again, parking your headquarters in the very building you'd once been imprisoned in was statement enough.  'You're drunk.'

'I'm relaxed.  I forgive you for not noticing the difference; I so rarely get to be either.'

Duo smiled unwillingly.  'In that case, since we're relaxing, I'll confess that I wanted to blow your shit away once I was behind the controls.  Yours and everyone else's there.'

Khushrenada turned his head toward the window.  It didn't look like he was actually seeing anything, but he looked good in profile, cold as marble.  The faint wrinkle to the side of his mouth became a dimple, if only momentarily.  'You wouldn't be the man you are if you hadn't wanted it.'

That was possibly a compliment.  Duo was a little sloppy pouring his shot, and smeared vodka into the tablecloth with his thumb.  It went down smoothly, a little too smoothly.  'Maybe,' he said.  Oh.  Possibly that was an acknowledgment of a few other things.  Duo had held a knife on him in bed.

Abruptly Khushrenada turned back to him.  The cowlick slipped over his forehead, and he brushed it back with a relaxed little wave.  'But you chose.'

'I decided, yeah.'  The lack of tension made Duo seize up tight.  He wasn't chosing his words carefully enough.  Drunk or sober-- relaxed or whatever the fuck he wanted to call it.  Treize Khushrenada fed on nuance.

'You rise to challenges,' Khushrenada said, gilding the lily for some inexplicable reason.  'It's a good characteristic in the young.  When you're ready to set them for others, you'll take the next step.'

'I've been challenging you since the beginning.  Doesn't that count?'

Khushrenada smirked.  The dimple made a re-appearance.  'Does a man feel threatened by a bee sting?'

'You never know when you're going to develop a sensitivity to something so benign,' Duo countered.

Khushrenada laughed.  Duo hunched his shoulders.  'Well said.  Drink up.'

Duo slammed his shot.  He coughed a little.

'That's good,' Khushrenada said decisively.  'You wouldn't drink with me six months ago.'

'You wouldn't have put me in that Gundam six months ago.'

'I like a good wager, but I like it even more when the odds are on my side.'

'They aren't.'

'Aren't they?'  Not even a hint of a slur-- Duo had a good idea exactly how much vodka was needed to get to that point-- but there was something loose in the way Khushrenada slumped just a little, let his weight settle lower, the casual elegance of the fingers waving through the air, absent purpose and direction.  Speculating on his life, his future, his entire agenda-- sure, that sounded calming.  'For the moment at least.  I have another year, perhaps.  A little longer if I make more good wagers.  Your stunt in the Gundam bought me six months.  If Zechs succeeds in Sanq, another six.  Then someone will come with a real challenge for me, not a bee sting.'

Interesting assessment.  Maybe.  Obviously Preventers had hit the ground rolling and nothing was going to stop the gravy train; Duo edited the budget reports and knew they were fully funded for the next five years.  That would be a pretty sweet legacy, even without Khushrenada's work on the Security Council.  A real challenge.  That was pretty pessimistic, really.

Duo refilled their shots.  He said, 'You'll be ready.'

'Of course I'll be ready.'  Duo rolled his eyes.  'Will I win?  If I have allies like Duo Maxwell.'

'Ha.'

They drank.  Khushrenada drew in a long slow breath through the nose, and let it out the same way.  'You don't smile.'

'Is that a job requirement?'

'No.  An observation.'

The alcohol was starting to hit.  The tip of his nose felt numb and his ears hot.  He sipped again anyway.  'You assign too much importance to facial expression.'

'I believe that was a significant accomplishment for the Cro Magnon.  Very well.  So serious.'

'If I smiled, what would it mean?'  He put one on.  Okay, it did feel sort of unfamiliar.  But he made it convincing.  The face he'd had to wear for photo ops, the face he'd had to make watching Zechs call Heero to his rooms every night.  Not too much teeth.  Get the eyes involved.  It was hard to get the eyes, but that was what a smart man looked for.

Smart man.  Khushrenada's gaze was solid on his.  And the crinkles next to his eyes were not a smile.  Sad.  Distinctly.  'Nothing, perhaps.  It might mean nothing.'

Duo let it drop.  It was starting to feel sort of rubbery.  He solved it with vodka.  'Why's it important to you?'

'Humanity is hard to come by, and easy to lose.'

'You-- think I've lost mine?'

'No.  I don't.'

Oh.  He knew this mood.  This wasn't actually different from the Night That Would Not Be Named.  Khushrenada was wallowing, and it had been going on behind blue eyes for weeks while he acted normal.  Shit.  Suddenly Duo was tired, was exhausted, was really regretting drinking this much, and he probably couldn't pull off pizza after hours twice.  Humanity is hard to come by, easy to lose-- that was biographical, auto-biographical, that was a confession, and, worse, that was mourning.  No, worst of all, it wasn't.  Not really.  You couldn't feel grief over something you gave up voluntarily, not if you summed up all the costs in one column against the gains in the next and consistently made the same decision.  No room for grief alongside ambition.  That was a choice, too.  But it made a lot of sense, suddenly, in a crazy kind of way, why Khushrenada had ever brought Duo Maxwell to his office and started this weird game of apprenticeship and mentoring.  Humanity was easy to sign away.  A lot harder to get it vicariously.

He'd put a knife to Khushrenada's throat.  Khushrenada had let him.  And he'd brought him pizza because he was sad about his friend dying, and Khushrenada had let him do that, too.  Duo rubbed at his nose, the heat at the back of his neck, and poured again.  He drank.

The moment passed.  Khushrenada made a little face, a twitch of the brow, and gestured for a refill.  'You stole my joyous thunder,' he grumped, and leant his head back on the chair rail, folding his hands over his belly and contemplating the ceiling.  'So.  The Gundam.  It meets your satisfaction?'

'Yeah,' Duo said. He cleared his throat.  'Hell, yeah.  I have a few recommendations.  I wrote a report.'

'I'll read it.'

'I want to fly it again.  Don't ask me to.'

'Not just yet.  Let them finish it.  But you will be the pilot.'

He emptied Khushrenada's glass down the gullet.  Just shotgunned it.  He was going to puke all night and have a headache tomorrow, and Khushrenada would probably still make him jog at dawn.  He was a few clicks past loose and into reckless.  Khushrenada was going to put him in a fucking Gundam and he didn't know what he felt, what he thought, but it was somewhere smack between joy and terror.  Weird, that rage wasn't in there.  Well, not a lot of rage.  'Uh huh,' he managed.  Triumph.  Maybe.  He wanted it.  God, he wanted it.

'I want you seen in it,' Khushrenada was musing, unwittingly echoing the pulse of Duo's thoughts.  'I want you to be as famous as the Lightning Count was.'

'I already am.'

'Mm, not as much as your little blonde friend.  The tragic Mr Winner.'

'Fuck you,' Duo said.  Oops.  Impulse.  Past reckless and into foolhardy.  'Sorry.'

Blue eyes.  Taking him in sidelong.  Then politely looking away.  'No apology.  That was well deserved.  Nonetheless.  You're a name of the moment, and the moment is largely gone.  I want little children playing Pilot Maxwell.'

They were.  They just weren't playing Pilot Maxwell as the Good Guy.

The caviar had arrived.  Duo hadn't noticed it arriving, which didn't speak well of his ability to multi-task.  It was sitting quietly on the edge of the bar, a covered tray.  Duo got to his feet, swayed a little bit, and fetched it.  Khushrenada fixed a cracker, black beady fish eggs gleaming on the edge, and it crunched, flaked a bit onto his uniform jacket, brushed away a moment later.  'Eat,' the Field Marshal instructed.  'You're a lightweight.  You need some meat on your bones.  You never eat what I serve you.'

'I spent my childhood digging scraps out of the rubbish bin.  Forgive me being a little picky.'

'It's not fussy.  Malnourishment, neurological disability.  Lack of breast feeding, childhood deficiency in iron, iodine, protein.  You have a lifetime of corrective treatment before you if you desire to overcome the obstacle of your unfortunate birth.'  Khushrenada nudged the tray at him.  'I'll send you to my nutritionist.'

'Your nutritionist.'  Siberia.  Yeah.  Khushrenada wasn't reading out of a pamphlet at him.  'Your nutritionist recommends a lot of salty shit, huh?'

'You have to learn to enjoy food.  Not just eat to survive.'

'That-- is almost understandable.'  Duo nudged the tray back across the table.  'It's still gross, though.'

Khushrenada dealt another cracker, dipping it directly into the small bowl of caviar and settling back.  He fed himself with one hand and with the other loosened his shirt, popping the collar and one button beneath it, ruminating on the ceiling.  His fingers brushed down the placket in a slow line, snagging at the tie clip.

'What?' Duo asked reluctantly.

'It's a great game, Duo.  I've enjoyed it.'

'It's not a game.  To me.'

'Mm.  No.  It wouldn't be.'

'That disappoints you?'

'I don't expect you to be a replica of me.'

'You'd hate me if I were.  At the very least, I'd be too dangerous keep living.'

Khushrenada grinned fleetingly.  Disregarded the warning.  Or maybe invited the consequences.  He closed his eyes comfortably.  'The same was said of me, once.  The game of it is to keep ahead of the knives.'

'I know.'  Duo took a cracker, that was safe, but the taste on his tongue was stale, not inviting.  He crumbled the edges of the cracker into a napkin, grain by grain.  'The sticking point is that sometimes it'd be even more deadly to destroy a dangerous man.'

Silence.  A great deal of it.  Not disturbed by so much as a breath.  The crinkles were back at Khushrenada's eyes, then.  Not a smile.  Not sad.  Way beyond that.  A lot closer to pain, old pain, severe and never easing.

'You were always more of a lynchpin than anyone realized.  Even you.'  Duo broke the cracker in half and dropped it.  'I'm drunk.'

'It's good sometimes.'  There was just a hint of hoarseness in Khushrenada's voice.  'Gives the mind time to be creatively rearranged.'

'Is that what you're doing now?'

'I'm Russian.  This is a light apéritif, Mr Maxwell.'

'Fignya,' Duo said.  He made a hash of the accent, but Khushrenada rolled his head to peek, for just a moment, and something in the dark eased off a little, momentarily averted.  'You miss it?  Being Russian instead of being Treize Khushrenada?'

'Who says they're not intimately bound?'

'I'm not so sure they are.'

'No?'

'We all surrender a lot of who we are to become what the world needs us to be.'

'We're back at humanity, Mr Maxwell.'

'I thought I was Duo.'

The thunder was back.  Low and rolling.  Figurative.  Maybe.  The storm felt electric and on top of them and was probably entirely imaginary, but the hairs on his arms rose, crawling up the back of his neck.  Khushrenada didn't look at him, wouldn't look at him, but his eyes blinked, erratically, and his jaw was tight.

He stuck the cork back in the vodka because if he had it available he'd pour another shot just to have the distraction.  He sought safe ground, practical ground, said a thing that needed saying before either of them forgot it was important.  'Look, don't get your spin doctors working on this.  I don't want to be the Dark Prince or the Wild Cat or the Lucky 13 or any of that shit.  Pilot Maxwell is plenty.  Okay?'

'They have some very creative options.  Some of them are even halfway decent.'  Khushrenada made an effort to sound normal.  It sounded like a lot of effort, anyway.  'I rather like Dark Prince.  It's got a kind of Robin Hood wink to it.'

'You're shitting me.  Although... I'd outrank you.'  He was hoping for a chuckle.  His lungs squeezed painfully tight when he got strained speechlessness instead.  'I don't give a shit what people call me.  It's all a game anyway, right?  Do what you want.'

'It's not immutable.  These little monikers only last a handful of years.  But they get repeated in the news, passed along in conversations.  Strike a romantic note in innocent young hearts.  Shallow, yes, but there is some worth to the ploy.'

The Lightning Count.  La Lupe.  Dark Prince.  He didn't want to join those ranks.  He'd heard them calling Heero Zero-One, still.  Duo scattered crumbs, mashed them into the tablecloth.  'Silent but Deadly.  Hmm.'

Twitch.  Blink.  Khushrenada looked at him.  For just a second.

'Terror at Six O'Clock.  Wait, Cocked and Locked.'

'Duo.'

Gentle, that.  He hadn't known Khushrenada could say it like that.  Gentle.

'Forget the nicknames.'

'I'm not as bugged about it as all that.  Okay?  I would just rather call it what it is.  Get your hype machines rolling.  I'll work with it.'

'We'll see.  We'll get you in the Gundam first.  See what falls about naturally.'

'Paint it black, okay?'

Their eyes locked.  Khushrenada looked away first, defeated.  Not much of a victory.  Duo tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry.

 

 

**

 

 

It was weird to think it had been four years.

Duo lay in his bed in his small quiet room, listening to the drip of rain in the alley, drip drip drip on brick, something pinging faintly metallic, a roof tile maybe, or a storm gutter.  Sleep evaded him, it was that kind of drunk, the mind scattered, the emotions all cross-wired and memory-- memory was muscle-bound, sensory-loaded, and he could smell the fucking Gundam in the dark with him, that smell of burning beam weapon and greasy metal and his own sweat and the bitter acid burn of adrenaline as he flew Deathscythe into battle, sure the end would come, daring the end to come.

Hands on the controls.  Hands on his quilt, soft cotton.  Eyes on the grid, plotting the countdown to launch, the trajectory of a cannon blast, the velocity of a lunge through Space.  Eyes on the ceiling, no secrets up there, just a lid keeping him in when his mind wanted to float away.

If they gave him a Gundam, and he didn't use it in a suicide run to assassinate as many of the brass as he could get to, didn't use to bomb the living Jesus out of Brussels or even just the largest Preventers base on the planet, didn't turn tail and deliver it to the nearest Hibiscus safehouse-- it made him a traitor.

But it had been four years.  And the war was over and even if he did all of that, it wouldn't change the fact that he'd lost, his side had lost, he didn't have a side now.  It wouldn't make a damn bit of difference.

He rolled and buried his face in the pillow, breathless and dizzy and ashamed.


	32. Trowa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This collection of shorts explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

'There you are.' Leia Barton stripped a bloody mask from her face, dragging the cotton cap from her hair and shaking out the sweaty strings of her ginger bob. The lines of her youthful face were barely visible in normal circumstances, but a thirteen-hour shift on emergency triage had aged her a decade. Her mouth was pale and bitten, and her usual grace had vanished. She moved jerkily, like an automaton, ripping off her gloves and gown and stuffing the refuse into an already overflowing bin. There was rusty red splashed over her trousers and shoes, too, but if she knew it was there she ignored it, falling into a chair and slumping low.

Trowa filled a second cup of coffee. It had a bitter, recycled taste, water from a strained processing system and anaemic beans grown in hydroponic labs from the same tainted source. Leia grimaced at the first sip. It didn't stop her from chugging the rest of it. Trowa seated himself in another of the light-weight plastic chairs, perching on the edge and propping his elbows on the table between them.

'God,' Leia said wearily.

Trowa nodded politely. He set a candy bar on the table, peanuts and chocolate. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Leia ate it uncomplaining.

'L3,' Leia said, after nearly ten minutes of silence. She smoothed the wrapper flat with the very tips of her fingers.

Trowa waited. More didn't seem forthcoming. 'Yes.'

'Is it always like this?'

'I don't know,' Trowa shrugged. 'Recently, definitely.'

'How long is recently?'

She had a dry sense of humour every so often. 'Hundred years,' Trowa said. 'Give or take.'

'And the fact that the war is over?'

'Very nice fact,' Trowa nodded. 'Cute, even.'

Leia sighed. She began to fold the wrapper, making triangles out of squares. 'What's the definition of a lost cause? Don't answer. Sometimes you're too much for me, Mr Barton. Tell me something pleasant. Pass the time with me. Converse.'

It was either macabre or hallucinatory. Either was possible. Leia Barton was the kind of sheltered idealist who had a hard awakening, coming up against the blood and gore of something that had no easy explanations. Social injustice, systemic bias, bureaucratic immobility-- she knew how to fight that. People who killed because they'd misplaced their internal off button were beyond her worldview. After all, she had a rehabilitated Gundam Pilot tagging alongside. He was proof the pudding could, should, bake right. She kept pushing, prodding, trying to pin him into an admission otherwise, and every time he picked the right answer she confirmed to herself that she'd been right all along, justified. He had no doubt she was smart. Brilliant, even. It didn't make her wise to the world.

Trowa watched her fold and fold again. He said, 'Have you ever ridden a bicycle?'

'A bicycle?'

'Two wheels. Steering. Pedals.'

'I'm familiar with the concept.' The wrapper was taking a new shape. Lots of points, like tiny knife blades sticking out. 'No, I've never ridden one.'

Figured. They weren't uncommon, exactly, in the colonies, where public transport options were limited by the availability of fuel, but Leia Barton had probably spent her life being shephered from high rise to mansion in luxury cars. Inner Circlers who needed to commute did it on metro carriages, on buses, or on foot.

'We had a bike,' Trowa said. 'When I was young. It was a tetanus trap waiting to spring, but they wrapped the handlebars and kept the chain oiled and it worked, more or less. They taught me to ride, and eventually I learnt a few tricks. No hands. Standing up on the seat. Back wheel only, front wheel. A couple of jumps. It was a way to pass the time.'

'Does that translate to "fun"?' she wondered.

'Fff-unnn? No. Not familiar with that word. German?'

A tiny smile curled one side of her mouth. Fold. Fold. She pushed her hair back, looped it behind an ear, and folded again. 'Where did you grow up?'

'Here and there.'

'Here being L3?'

'There being a lot of other places besides.'

'Family?'

'No.'

'No, no family, or no, stop asking?'

Trowa transferred his gaze to the clock on the wall. It was three minutes slower than his watch, and would get slower than that eventually, with the second hand lagging. 'No family,' he said.

'Family can be a burden as much as a blessing.'

'You say that to your daughter a lot?'

There was a quick light of betrayal in her eyes.  Trowa only looked at them long enough to see them shutter away the hurt.  He went back to the clock.  There wasn't much to it, a little tick of movement and a consistently degrading will to function.

'If I tell you I'm tired of dancing around the subject, can we speak honestly about the past?'

'Whatever you like, ma'am.  I'm at your disposal.'

'I never liked that phrase.  Disposal.  It can be all too literal.'

It usually was.  She had the power to do anything at all to him.  Lock him up somewhere.  Return him to Preventers, which amounted to the same thing.  Stop talking to him, at him, which he didn't think she'd do until he said the wrong thing fnally.  She was easy to read.  She didn't trouble to hide anything-- she'd probably never had to, not really.  Not anything that would make the difference between life and death.

She reminded him of Quatre, in a way.  The way he thought Quatre had been, before war.  Except that Quatre had known how to kill.  Had known that he could kill.  Leia Barton had never had to learn that about herself.

'My brother is dead?' she asked, and that confirmed everything he'd ever thought about her, because anyone who hadn't come through the war with clean hands would know better than to ask something that useless.

'Yes,' Trowa said.

'How?'

'A bullet.'

'I mean... I mean, why.'

Less than useless.  Pointless.  'I don't know, really.  I heard an argument.  I don't know what it was about.'  Tick, tick, tick, slightly slower each passing second.  'I probably did at the time.  It didn't benefit me to listen too closely, or to remember too much.  But they caught me there.  I would have been next.'

'So you took his name.  And his Gundam.'

'Yep.  Exactly as easy as that.'

There was a slight frown wrinkling her forehead.  He looked, let her see him look.  Let her think what she wanted to.  Scruples and shame.  He swiped a hand down his face, hairless jaw, still young.  Younger than her.  He let his eyes dart away, unsettled, let the legs of his chair scrape, too loud, on the lineoleum as he shoved to his feet.  He sloshed coffee into the dingy styrofoam cup he'd been using earlier, letting the line of brown gunge guide his pour.  Let his shoulders hunch, tense, with his head turned too far away from her, seeking escape.

Then she threw him for a swerve.  Indifferently, almost, disinterestedly, she said, 'I didn't know him well.  Dekim didn't really believe in family dinners.'

Didn't know him well.  Didn't know him well.  If she hadn't really known him, if she didn't know her brother well enough to care about him, why pursue it?  He thought he'd been reading it right.  She'd been pushing at him for a week, from practically the moment she'd picked him up at the shuttleport and signed his assignment transfer.  Like fuck she didn't care.  Why ask otherwise?

Unless she was cannier than he'd credited her.  Cleverer.  That was a long con, but with no apparent purpose.  Seeking weakness?  In that case, she'd seen what he'd shown her, a teenager with a conscience and undiagnosed trauma, appealing to the wanna-be healer in her, the woman who spent thirteen hours sewing wounds in an underfunded Inner Circle hospital because she believed the lower classes deserved competent medical care, as long as they stayed in their part of the colony away from the manicured lawns of the big estates in Outer Circle.  He'd shown her Quatre, he'd shown her a survivor with a little humour and grace, tossed in a little mystery and thought her satisfied with the mix.  But he hadn't thought her capable of doing the same to him.

'I never met him,' Trowa said cautiously.  He mimed a sip of the coffee.  Base coffee had been better, and that was saying something.  But let her think he was jittery from too much juice.  Let her wonder.

'Dekim?  Not a very pleasant man.  And he always smelled.  Too much cologne, to cover the smell.  Crohn's disease with fistulae and colon cancer.  He tried a half dozen genetic treatments, all unregulated, black market-- he was stupid like that, in pain and tired of suffering, but he always thought he was smarter than his doctors.  He had money, so how could he be wrong?  It seems to be a common fallacy amongst the wealthy.  That, and a tendency to believe your political views are, naturally, the only view.'

'What stopped you from turning into that?'

'Being ignored, I suppose.  Come sit down, Trowa.  I won't bite.'

It was insane there wasn't anyone else in the canteen, even granted it was early morning at this point, that most of the medical staff was probably cleaning up after the latest influx of Resistance-initiated violence.  Bombs went off all the fucking time.  Gangs slaughtered each other in the streets.  Walk long enough in any direction on L3 and you'd find enough dead bodies to fill a morgue.  There should be some off-duty nurse or somebody slumming for the quiet.  He even wondered, for a moment, if she'd locked them in alone.  But that was dumb.  If she wanted to corner him alone she'd do it in her corporate office, she'd do it in the town car, she'd invite him back to her hotel room.  This was just a mood and a convenient moment, and he could outlast her.

'It's better if I stand,' he said.

'Are you very lonely?  I suppose that's disingenuous.  I know what it is to be lonely, and to learn how to live with being lonely.  To come to prefer it.  To find people... strange.  Strangers.  If I make you uncomfortable, we don't have to talk.  But I think we should try.  Connection is a muscle, a skill, and it has to exercised or it will be lost.'

'I'm not sure it's a loss.'

'You won't be.  Until you need it, and don't have it.'

'Miss Barton, are you trying to save me?'

'That would be disingenuous, too,' she replied, and placed the wrapper on the table in front of his abandoned seat.  It was transformed from a bit of torn foil into a crane, with a tiny beak, a proud neck, two jutting wings.  Trowa touched a finger to it, and it toppled.  He righted it gingerly.

'Origami,' Leia explained, folding one last time, her hands beneath her small chin.  'I had a fascination for it when I was a child.  I taught my daughter.  I could teach you.  It's calming.  Repetitive.'

'Sounds lonely,' he muttered, and turned away from her to bin his coffee.  He was hitting that edge of hyper-awareness that usually only came to him in battle.  An acrid taste on his tongue that wasn't a caffeine byproduct.  He was clocking exits and windows for escape routes, shadows for lurking combatants, taking stock of available weapony.  Glass coffee urn with a handle would be good for smashing a few faces.  The rod holding a few dispirited tea towels could be ripped loose and used for stabbing.  Tables overturned, no shelter against a spray of gunfire but obstacles against pursuit, maybe.  And then he looked at the woman who sat in here, small-boned woman sitting prettily despite the blood splatter and doing nothing more challenging than offering craft hour.

'If we're not dancing anymore,' he said, 'when you asked for a Gundam Pilot, did you expect me?'

'No,' she answered immediately, with all apparent candour.  'And I'm still trying to figure out what it means that I got you.'

He didn't say Duo.  He didn't say Treize Khushrenada, either, though possibly she thought it was connected.  Possibly it was.  Trowa didn't worry about the big picture much.  He worried about getting himself from A to B, and staying upright and breathing along the way.  Quatre--

Quatre would have used this opportunity.  For what, Trowa didn't know, couldn't imagine.  But Quatre would have done something, the right thing, said the right thing to-- His mouth was desert dry.  His eyes were hot and stinging.

'Come sit down,' she said again, soft and low, the way you talked to a wounded animal trapped in a cruel snare.  He wasn't a rabbit and she wasn't a hunter, but here they were, nonetheless.

'He was nice to me sometimes,' Trowa managed.

Her lips parted.  For the space of a breath.  'Who?'

'Trowa.  He was-- nice to me.  He'd bring-- magazines.  Comics.  Or candy.  He would--'  He didn't know how to say it.  He made a vague gesture.  Patting the top of his head, ruffling his hair.

'I'm glad,' was the carefully considered answer, a long minute later.

'I assumed it meant he wanted to fuck me.  That's usually what it meant.'

Her face arrested.  Just stopped, frozen.

'You trap a bunch of men together in a bunker with alcohol and loose morals and it doesn't take long to identify the weak point.  Men have needs-- they'll tell you that.  But they're willing to trade for what they need, if your price is reasonable.'

'He-- did he.'  She didn't say.  Couldn't bring herself to say it, maybe.  She knew what the horror was, she knew enough to be repelled, repulsed, but it was the unknown that sickened her, the unnamed.  She pressed her fingers to her lips to hold it in.  'You wouldn't... you wouldn't take the name of a man who... did...'

'He's dead.  I'm not.  Names don't mean anything.'

'They remind us.'

'Then what do I remind you of?'

The door opened.  A doctor in scrubs, one of the administrators who'd met them at the door a very long while ago, smiling in a suit and tie and a pristinely white coat.  Now he wore scrubs, crusted brown with however many dozens of lives had been lost today.  He walked like a zombie, a half-shuffle hazed over with bone-crushing exhaustion.  He was most of the way to the coffee before he even registered two other people in the canteen, and then it only rocked him a step.

'Rochdale is transferring twenty-five casualties to us, Miss Barton,' he said, and took the cup Trowa poured him.  'You should rest.  Your efforts here are appreciated, but we have a relief team coming in and a long cycle ahead of us.'

'I'll call your driver, Miss Barton,' Trowa said, and put the phone to his ear before she could protest it.

'Origami?' the doctor asked, picking up the crane.  'Pretty.'

Leia flipped the lid on the bin, throwing her half-full cup through the plastic swing-door.  That didn't make enough of a point for her, so she slammed the door of the canteen on her way out, too.

'Fiesty,' said the doctor, taking her vacated chair and propping his feet on Trowa's.  'Ahhh.  Red-heads, yes?'

'Gentlemen prefer blondes,' Trowa said, and dialled for the town car.


End file.
